There
she is again,' said the young man called Ladywell.

'Some cottage lass, not yet old enough to make the most of the value set
on her by her follower, small as that appears to be. Now we may get an
idea of the hour named by the fellow for the appointment, for, depend
upon it, the time when she first came--about five minutes ago--was the
time he should have been there. It is now getting on towards five--half-
past four was doubtless the time mentioned.'

'She's not come o' purpose: 'tis her way home from school every day,'
said the waterman.

'An experiment on woman's endurance and patience under neglect. Two to
one against her staying a quarter of an hour.'

'The same odds against her not staying till five would be nearer
probability. What's half-an-hour to a girl in love?'

'On a moorland in wet weather it is thirty perceptible minutes to any
fireside man, woman, or beast in Christendom--minutes that can be felt,
like the Egyptian plague of darkness. Now, little girl, go home: he is
not worth it.'

Twenty minutes passed, and the girl returned miserably to the hand-post,
still to wander back to her retreat behind the sedge, and lead any chance
comer from the opposite quarter to believe that she had not yet reached
this ultimate point beyond which a meeting with Christopher was
impossible.

'Now you'll find that she means to wait the complete half-hour, and then
off she goes with a broken heart.'

All three now looked through the hole to test the truth of the
prognostication. The hour of five completed itself on their watches; the
girl again came forward. And then the three in ambuscade could see her
pull out her handkerchief and place it to her eyes.

'She's grieving now because he has not come. Poor little woman, what a
brute he must be; for a broken heart in a woman means a broken vow in a
man, as I infer from a thousand instances in experience, romance, and
history. Don't open the door till she is gone, Ladywell; it will only
disturb her.'

As they had guessed, the pupil-teacher, hearing the distant town-clock
strike the hour, gave way to her fancy no longer, and launched into the
diverging path. This lingering for Christopher's arrival had, as is
known, been founded on nothing more of the nature of an assignation than
lay in his regular walk along the plain at that time every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday of the six previous weeks. It must be said that he
was very far indeed from divinin