Page:Fletcher--Where Highways Cross.djvu/19

 of personal care. She wore gloves and a veil, and beneath the latter the waggoner saw a face that was young and attractive, with delicate features and pathetic eyes, and a mouth that drooped a little at the corners as if with anxiety or grief. He whistled more softly on making these discoveries, but his companion apparently took no heed of the music which he made. Her eyes were fixed on the red roofs that shut in the vanishing point of the long, straight high-road; her hands lay in her lap, the fingers lacing and interlacing each other.

"Nasty day," said the waggoner at length. "Both for man and beast, as the saying is."

The woman half turned towards him. Something in the movement suggested to him that she had until then forgotten his presence.

"Yes," she answered. She turned from him again, and looked once more along the road. "What place is that we're coming to?" she enquired.

"That, missis? That's Sicaster."