Until the coachman called his attention to a passing waggon, and pointed out a something unusual in its make; which broke the spell and freed his thoughts. After that he began to feel a little of the wonder which the coincidence demanded. How came she in the same seat, on the same coach on which she had travelled before. He could not bring himself to look round and meet her eyes. But he remembered that a man-servant, doubtless in attendance on her, shared the hind seat with the clerk who had spoken to him; and the middle-aged woman who sat with her was doubtless her maid. Still, he knew Sir Robert well enough to be sure that he would not countenance her journeying, even with this attendance, on a public vehicle; and therefore, he argued, she must be doing it without Sir Robert’s knowledge, and probably in pursuance of some whim of her own. Could it be that she, too, wished to revive the bitter-sweet of recollection, the memory of that April day? And, to do so, had gone out of her way to travel on this cold wet morning on the same coach, which six months before had brought them together? If so, she must love him in spite of all. And in that case, what must her feelings have been when she saw him take his place? What, when she knew that she would not taste the bitter-sweet alone, but in his company? What, when she foresaw that, through the day she would not pass a single thing of all those well-remembered things, that milestone which he had pointed out to her, that baiting-house of which she had asked the name, that stone bridge with the hundred balustrades which they had crossed in the gloaming—her eyes would not alight on one of these, without another heart answering to every throb of hers, and another breast aching as hers ached. At that thought a subtle attraction, almost irresistible, drew him to her, and he could have cried to her, under the pain of separation. For it was all true. Before his eyes those things were passing. There was the milestone which he had pointed out to her. And there the ruined inn. And here were the streets of Reading opening before them, and the Market Place, and the Bear Inn, where he had saved her from injury, perhaps from death. * * * * *