Everything real, substantial, comforting,
seemed to have slipped away. Among these flying dark ghosts of
pine-trees--as it were the unfrequented borderland between two
worlds--the feeling of a cheek against her breast alone could help
muffle the deep disquiet in her, lost like a child in a wood.
The cab slackened speed, the driver was lighting his lamps; and his red
face appeared at the window.
"We'll 'ave to stop here, miss; I'm out of petrol. Will you get some
dinner, or go through?"
"Through," answered Barbara:
While they were passing the little time, buying then petrol, asking the
way, she felt less miserable, and even looked about her with a sort of
eagerness. Then when they had started again, she thought: If I could
get him to sleep--the sea will comfort him! But his eyes were staring,
wide-open. She feigned sleep herself; letting her head slip a little to
one side, causing small sounds of breathing to escape. The whirring of
the wheels, the moaning of the cab joints, the dark trees slipping by,
the scent of the wet fern drifting in, all these must surely help!
And presently she felt that he was indeed slipping into darkness--and
then-she felt nothing.
When she awoke from the sleep into which she had seen Miltoun fall, the
cab was slowly mounting a steep hill, above which the moon had risen.
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