“I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. Launce’s. Do not think worse of me than I am, Elfride.”
And then they rattled along through the night, back again by the way they had come. The weather cleared, and the stars shone in upon them. Their two or three fellow-passengers sat for most of the time with closed eyes. Stephen sometimes slept; Elfride alone was wakeful and palpitating hour after hour.
The day began to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. Red rocks overhung them, and, receding into distance, grew livid in the blue grey atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of light in upon their weary faces. Another hour, and the world began to be busy. They waited yet a little, and the train slackened its speed in view of the platform at St. Launce’s.
She shivered, and mused sadly.
“I did not see all the consequences,” she said. “Appearances are wofully against me. If anybody finds me out, I am, I suppose, disgraced.”
“Then appearances will speak falsely; and how can that matter, even if they do? I shall be your husband sooner or later, for certain, and so prove your purity.”
“Stephen, once in London I ought to have married you,” she said firmly. “It was my only safe defence. I see more things now than I did yesterday. My only remaining chance is not to be discovered; and that we must fight for most desperately.”
They stepped out. Elfride pulled a thick veil over her face.
A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening eyes was sitting on a bench just inside the office-door. She fixed her eyes upon Elfride with an expression whose force it was impossible to doubt, but the meaning of which was not clear; then upon the carriage they had left. She seemed to read a sinister story in the scene.
Elfride shrank back, and turned the other way.