Tom didn't hear the words, but the look had been quite enough for him, and he broke off short in his speech, and turned his head away, and, after two or three flounderings which Mary seemed not to notice, stopped short, and let Miss Winter and Hardy join them.
“It's getting dark,” he said, as they came up; “the Walk is thinning; ought we not to be going? Remember, I am in charge.”
“Yes, I think it is time.”
At this moment the great Christchurch bell—Tom by name—began to toll.
“Surely that can't be Tom?” Miss Winter said, who had heard the one hundred and one strokes on former occasions.
“Indeed it is, though.”
“But how very light it is.”
“It is almost the longest day in the year, and there hasn't been a cloud all day.”
They started to walk home all together, and Tom gradually recovered himself, but left the labouring oar to Hardy, who did his work very well, and persuaded the ladies to go on and see the Ratcliffe by moonlight—the only time to see it, as he said, because of the shadows—and just to look in at the old quadrangle of St. Ambrose.
It was almost ten o'clock when they stopped at the lodgings in High-street. While they were waiting for the door to be opened, Hardy said—