Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 7.pdf/254

 are my friend. You will work. You are not a very strong man, you know, now—you will forgive me—nor do you know all you should. But what will you be in six years' time?"

He stared hard in front of him still, and the lines about his weak mouth seemed to strengthen. He knew she understood what he could not say.

"I'll work," he said, concisely.

They stood side by side for a moment. Then he said, with a motion of his head, "I won't come back to them. Do you mind? Going back alone?"

She took ten seconds to think. "No," she said, and held out her hand, biting her nether lip. "Good-bye," she whispered.

He turned with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand limply, and then with a sudden impulse lifted it to his lips. She would have snatched it away, but his grip tightened to her movement. She felt the touch of his lips, and then he had dropped her fingers and turned from her and was striding down the slope. A dozen paces away his foot turned in the lip of a rabbit hole, and he stumbled forward and almost fell. He recovered his balance and went on, not looking back. He never once looked back. She stared at his receding figure until it was small and far below her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now, turned slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind her, towards Stoney Cross again.

"I did not know," she whispered to herself. "I did not understand. Even now— No, I do not understand."