Ferrers pushed the wooden box into the doorway where she stood leaning heavily against the jamb. "Sit down on that," said he, "while I brew you some tea. You're tired to death. Time enough to think of things after."
The girl sat down, and for a while she cried gently to herself. Her physical fatigue was enormous, rendering her perfectly helpless for the time being, with a helplessness which she resented more bitterly than the incomparable mental torments of the situation. These she deserved. If only she could get away, and turn this bitter page before it drove her mad! If only she could creep away, and close her eyes for hours or for ever! Surely this was the refinement of her punishment, that the flesh, which had stood her in too good stead hitherto, should fail her utterly in her supreme need!
The red sun burst out of the plains, as it were under her very eyes--blinding them. Miss Winfrey would not look round. She heard matches struck, sticks crackling, and later, the "billy" bubbling on the fire. She knew when the "slush-lamp" was extinguished; her sense of smell informed her of the fact. She heard a chop frizzling at the fire, the cutting of the damper on the table; but not until Ferrers touched her on the shoulder, telling her that breakfast was ready, would she turn her head or speak a word. The touch made her quiver to the core. He apologised, explaining that he had spoken thrice. Then they sat down; and the girl ate ravenously; but Ferrers did little but make conversation, speaking now of the Pickerings, and now of some common friends in London; the people, in fact, who had brought these two together.
"They knew I had come out here; didn't they tell you?"
This answer set Ferrers thinking; and, after refilling the girl's pannikin and cutting more damper, he took a saddle from a long peg. He must catch his horse, he said; he would come back and see how she was getting on.
He did not come back for nearly an hour: the horse was a young one, and the horse-paddock, which was some little distance beyond the hut, was absurdly large. He returned ultimately at a gallop, springing off, with a new eagerness in his face, at the door of the hut. It was empty. He searched the hut, but the girl was gone. Then he remounted, and rode headlong down the fence; and something that he saw soon enough made his spurs draw blood. She was lying in the full glare of the morning sun, sound asleep. He had difficulty in awakening her, and greater difficulty in dissuading her from lying down again where she was.