"Luck!" she said, "and good-bye."
Her eyes dimmed unexpectedly, and she bent in a shamefaced hurry, printing a kiss on the girl's cheek ... and fled.
The door closed. In imagination one might see the midnight train thundering towards the watchers—hear the grinding of the brakes. To the bustle had succeeded a dreadful stillness. They had all gone like shadows, and the listener was deserted.
"I can't ... I can't ... I can't!" she reiterated in a sobbing whisper, casting the strange chance from her with a last effort of consciousness. The lamp was dying, and the world seemed to be turning round. In that unfriended darkness the ring on her finger was glittering like a charm.
CHAPTER II
The day's hunting was over.
Of the hundreds who had jostled each other in the first run, a disreputable few survived, pulling up after that last gallop. They grinned contentedly, drawing out their watches. Thirty-five minutes from the wood; a straight fox and elbow-room. It had been worth stopping out for, though now the dusk was thickening fast, and the huntsman was calling off his hounds.
"Where's Rackham?" asked one man, peering into the hollow.
"Gone home. I saw his back as we came through Pickwell."