He gave her an envelope he had in his pocket. It contained nothing but some seeds he had taken from a plant a few days ago, but the ruse served. Canterton left the parcel of pictures at one of the lodges. It took him just twenty minutes to reach Basingford station, for he had to walk through the village after taking some of the field paths at a run. A solitary milk cart stood in the station yard, and a clattering of cans came from the up platform. Canterton entered the booking office, glanced into the waiting-room, and strolled through to the up platform. There was no Eve. The place was deserted, save for a porter and the driver of the milk cart, who were loading empty cans on to a truck. Canterton remembered that he had a freight bill in his pocket, and that he owed the railway company three pounds and some odd silver. He called the porter. “Gates!” The man came at once, touching his cap. “Is the goods office open?” “Yes, sir.” “I have a bill I owe them. Anyone there to take the money?” “They’ll be ready for that, Mr. Canterton.” “Oh, by the way, Gates, did Miss Carfax catch her train all right? I mean the early one?” “The lady from Orchards Corner, sir?” “Yes. You know Miss Carfax.” “To be sure. She was earlier than me, sir, and down here before I got the booking office swept out.” “That’s good. I’m glad she caught it. Good morning, Gates.” “Good morning, sir.” As Canterton walked across to the goods office, he found himself confessing to a bitter and helpless sense of defeat. He had made this woman suffer, and it seemed out of his power now even to humble himself before her. She had fled out of his life, and appealed to him not to follow her—not to try and see her. It was better for them both, she had said, to try and forget, but he knew in his heart of hearts that it would never be forgotten. PART II CHAPTER XXII BOSNIA ROAD It is a suggestive thought that the characteristic effects of our execrable climate have nowhere shown themselves more forcibly than in the atmosphere of the London suburbs. That these suburbs are in some subtle respects the results of our melancholy grey skies no one can doubt. Even the raw red terraces scattered among the dingier and more chastened rows of depressed houses, betray a futile and rather boisterous attempt to introduce a butcher-boy cheerfulness into a world of smuts and rain. The older, sadder houses have taken the tint of their surroundings. They have been poised all these years between the moil and fog of the city, and a countryside that was never theirs, a countryside that is often pictured as wrapped in eternal June, but which for nine months out of the twelve knows grey gloom, mud, and rain.