“Will you come down to Wapping and take my cabin for the night?” he asked, anxiously. “The mate’s away, and I can turn in fo’ard—you can have it all to yourself.”
Miss Tyrell, still looking straight in front of her, made no reply, but with another attempt to shake off this pertinacious young man of the sea quickened her pace again. Fraser fell back.
“If I’m not fit to walk beside you, I’ll walk behind,” he said, in a low voice; “you won’t mind that?”
In this way they walked through the rapidly thinning streets. It was now dark, and most of the shops had closed. The elasticity had departed from Miss Tyrell’s step, and she walked aimlessly, noting with a sinking at the heart the slowly passing time. Once or twice she halted from sheer weariness, Fraser halting too, and watching her with a sympathy of which Flower would most certainly have disapproved if he had seen it.
At length, in a quiet street beyond Stratford, she not only stopped, but turned and walked slowly back. Fraser turned too, and his heart beat as he fancied that she intended to overtake him. He quickened his pace in time with the steps behind him until they slackened and faltered; then he looked round and saw her standing in the centre of the pathway with her head bent. He walked back slowly until he stood beside her, and saw that she was crying softly. He placed his hand on her arm.
“Go away,” she said, in a low voice.
“I shall not.”
“You walked away from me just now.”
“I was a brute,” said Fraser, vehemently.
The arm beneath his hand trembled, and he drew it unresistingly through his own. In the faint light from the lamp opposite he saw her look at him.