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166 walking in the other direction, and that, two hours back, you gave me a cursed cut over the legs with that whip, I fancy I see myself obliging you!"

He regarded me moodily for about a minute, but did not shift his position.

"Why are you on foot?" I asked.

"Oh, my God!" he cried out quickly, as a man might that was stabbed; "I couldn't trust myself to ride; I couldn't." He shuddered, and put a hand over his eyes. "Look here," he said, "you must walk home with me, or at least see me past the Chalk-pit."

Now the Chalk-pit, when spelt with a capital letter, is an especially deep and ugly one on the very edge of the Bleakirk road, about two miles out of the village. A weak fence only separates its lip from the macadam. It is a nasty place to pass by night with a carriage; but here it was broad day, and the fellow was walking. So I didn't take him at all.

"Listen to me," he went on in a dull voice; "do you remember sitting beside this road, close on ten years back? And a boy and girl who