She answered quietly that she did. But her heart was saying: "I do _now_. You have initiated me. I never felt the Five Towns before. You have made me feel them." II At the station the head porter received their inquiry for a Bradshaw with a dull stare and a shake of the head. No such thing had ever been asked for at Bursley Station before, and the man's imagination could not go beyond the soiled time-tables loosely pinned and pasted up on the walls of the booking-office. Hilda suggested that the ticket-clerk should be interrogated, but the aperture of communication with him was shut. She saw Edwin Clayhanger brace himself and rap on the wood; and instead of deploring his diffidence she liked it and found it full of charm. The partition clicked aside, and the ticket-clerk's peering, suspicious head showed in its place, mutely demanding a reason for this extraordinary disturbance of the dream in which the station slumbered between two half-hourly trains. With a characteristic peculiar slanting motion Edwin nodded. "Oh, how-d'ye-do, Mr. Brooks?" said Edwin hastily, as if startled by the sudden inexplicable apparition of the head. But the ticket-clerk had no Bradshaw either. He considered it probable, however, that the stationmaster would have a Bradshaw. Edwin had to brace himself again, for an assault upon the fastness of the stationmaster. And in the incredibly small and incredibly dirty fastness of the stationmaster, they indeed found a Bradshaw. Hilda precipitately took it and opened it on the stationmaster's table. She looked for Brighton in it as she might have looked for a particular individual in a city. Then Edwin was bending over it, with his ear close to her ear, and the sleeve of his overcoat touching her sleeve. She was physically aware of him, for the first time. She thought, disconcerted: "But he is an utter stranger to me! What do I know of him?" And then she thought: "For more than a year he must have carried my image in his heart!" "Here," said Edwin brusquely, and with a certain superiority, "you might just let me have a look at it myself." She yielded, tacitly admitting that a woman was no match for Bradshaw. After a few moments' frowning Edwin said: "Yes, there's a train to Brighton at eleven-thirty to-night!" "May I look?" "Certainly," said he, subtly condescending. She examined the page, with a serious deliberation. "But what does this '_f_' mean?" she asked. "Did you notice this '_f_'?" "Yes. It means Thursdays and Saturdays only," said Edwin, his eyes twinkling. It was as if he had said: "You think yourself very clever, but do you suppose that I can't read the notes in a time-table?" "Well--" She hesitated. "To-day's Thursday, you see," he remarked curtly.