"That's better; much better." What he meant she did not know; yet she felt that it was something which she would rather he did not mean. He went on: "Do I understand that, not knowing this country very well, you are journeying you don't know where--without money, without luggage, without even a hat on your head?"
Again she tried to defy him.
"I can't help your asking questions; but I'm not forced to answer them if I'd rather not; and I would rather not."
His manner, if anything, was blander than ever; her attitude did not seem to wound his sensibilities one bit.
"Quite right; you are perfectly right; if you don't want to answer, don't; never be coerced into answering a question which you don't want to answer. Impertinent curiosity is not to be encouraged. There is so much interest taken in our goings and our comings, merely because some people deem them peculiar, that the liberty of the subject threatens to become seriously abridged. I know what I am speaking of; I have suffered from that kind of thing myself. By the way, this morning, while you were still fast asleep in bed I--went shopping."
He laid a stress on the last two words which caused her to prick up her ears; she herself did not know why.
"Shopping? Where?"
She looked about her, as if she expected to find a shop, or shops, in sight. He shook his head.
"No, not here; there are no shops upon the heath that I am aware of; and I know it pretty well. I ought to. Where I went shopping was to a town called Newcaster. Have you ever heard of it?" Newcaster was the town from which she had fled the night before. So soon as he spoke of it a dreadful feeling began to come over her that she knew what was the point which he was approaching. She tried to shake the feeling off; but it would not be shaken. With beating pulses she sat and watched him drawing closer and closer. "Newcaster," he explained, speaking with what seemed to her to be hideous deliberation, "is a town not far from here; an old town; a racing town; it is to horse racing that, in all human probability, it owes its continued flourishing condition--for it continues to flourish. One of its numerous meetings is taking place now; there is to be racing on this heath to-day. You hear that humming and buzzing sound which comes and goes, so that now it fills all the air, and now seems completely to die away." She had heard it, and had vaguely wondered what it was. "If you were to go to the top of that bank you would understand--it is the noise made by the people who are going to the races; on foot, in motor cars, in vehicles of all sorts and kinds, and by the people who are already there. The race-course is over yonder, about two miles from where we are. A great crowd will be there to-day; and, though it's early, probably thousands are there already. It's all open country between it and us; and, on a day like this, with what breeze there is blowing from it towards us, sound travels. You'll know when a race begins by the noise the people make; and when it ends, by the comparative silence which follows." He paused to puff at his pipe. As he did so the humming and buzzing sound of which he had spoken grew distinctly louder. He pointed upwards with the stem of his pipe. "You hear?"
"Yes," she said; "I hear."