“Why, I don’t know,--sitting up, I suppose,--he could lean his back against the wall,” replied Mr. Warrener. Finally he consented to go, and set off, Calladine watching him until after trudging up the hill he topped its crest and was lost to sight. Calladine then, a prey to such loneliness as he had never dreamt, returned into the hut to wait. Twilight came, the long, cold, late-winter twilight when the world seems dead. The last vestiges of colour faded out of the west. Such sharp shadows as there had been, merged into a greyer, universal shadow; the hard black and the hard white turned to grey, vast and mournful; the sky was all grey now, and the dusk heavy with impending snow. The quietness and the poverty of the hut settled down round Calladine. He had examined its few poor resources, fingering the utensils he found in the little cupboard on the wall, the tea-pot, the canister of tea and sugar, the rasher of bacon put ready on a plate; but now he sat listless, with hanging hands, and not so much as a sound came to make him raise his head. He did not know how long he sat there. The darkness deepened; soon the black night was again over the Downs, vaulted; the big golden stars, and the dim huge shapes of the hills. He was without sensation, numb, having the consciousness only of his extreme solitude. So numb was he, that he was scarcely aware what he waited for. He simply sat on, in complete darkness now, feeling neither hunger nor cold, forgetful almost of his sorrow, patient only like a man condemned to an indefinite suspense. When he heard the sound of a voice singing out on the hill, he raised his head and waited. The voice drew nearer, singing a cheerful song; it trilled and carolled, as in an exuberant lightheartedness. To Calladine it came with a strange effect, this voice singing out in the night, unexplained, bearing down upon the hut, frivolous and rollicking. Suddenly it sounded quite close, outside. The door was torn open, a figure carrying a lantern appeared on the threshold, and Calladine beheld the grinning face and battered hat of Olver Lovel. The boy carried parcels in his arms, besides the lantern swinging from his wrist. He appeared in excellent spirits, grinning broadly, skipping as he stood on the threshold of the door, with little excited skips from foot to foot. He seemed scarcely able to contain his high spirits and his excitement. When he saw that the hut was already occupied, he gaped stupidly, then burst into peals of laughter. Calladine, remaining seated, looked at him without a word. He perceived nothing startling in the advent of this apparition, apathetic as he was, and at the same time strung up to the most improbable occurrences. It seemed to him quite natural that Olver should stand shouting with laughter in the doorway; he saw nothing grotesque in the encounter of himself with the crazy boy out in this hut on the hills. Clare!--this was the note to which Clare had re-tuned his life.