"She wants them for Eve Pascal herself," said the boy. "Eve Pascal has come back again: she came back this morning, only she hadn't got any one to send till now." "All right," said Reuben, returning to his shutter-closing and then proceeding to fasten the door: "I'll go round and speak to her myself." "Then you won't want me?" said the boy, not sorry to be released by his stern-looking companion. "No: you can go your own way," replied Reuben, already several paces in advance, and walking with such rapid strides that a few minutes brought him to the house which had been the scene of all the romance his life had ever known. "Oh, Mr. May!" but, paying no heed to the landlady's voice and without a pause, Reuben ran up the different flights of stairs, knocked at the door, opened it, and found himself at once in the presence of Eve: "Eve!" "Reuben!" And then silence, each looking at the other, wondering what could have wrought such a change; for the bodily fatigue and mental anxiety undergone by Reuben had told as heavily on his appearance as the sorrow Eve had endured had told on hers, although the absence of original comeliness made the alteration in him less generally noticeable. "Have you been ill, Eve?" and as he put the question a wild thought sprang up that perhaps her suffering had been on his account, and, stirred by this prompting, Reuben took her hand in his and looked with tender anxiety into her face. "No," she said, quietly withdrawing her hand, "I have not been ill. Have you? You look very ill." "Oh, that's on account of my having walked most of the way back here from Plymouth: it's a stiffish tramp, you know, and took the little flesh I had off my bones." Eve paused for an instant, as if trying to repress the over-haste of her question: then she said, while her face was half turned away, "Did you go straight on to Plymouth after I saw you?" "I got to Plymouth before daylight the next morning. I was forced to rest a bit here and there on the way, as I'd come the same ground once before that day; but the night was fine; so, as I didn't care about stopping anywheres, I stumped on without waiting to see Triggs even--made a message do for him--and started off on my journey." "Then you never went near Looe at all?" Eve exclaimed with eagerness. "Ah!" replied Reuben, evading a direct reply by a little laugh, under which he heralded his answer, "you may be sure I didn't stop to inquire the names of all the places I passed through: I was in too hot haste to turn my back on them for anything of that sort." "Oh, thank God!" said Eve; and at the words her whole mind and body seemed to relax from the strain imposed on them by the suspicion that in some indistinct way on her had rested the blame of the betrayal. "'Thank God'?" repeated Reuben sharply. "Thank God for what?" "For not making me the betrayer of those who put their trust in me."