They were alone in the compartment. William leaned forward and took her hand.
She drew her hand away; he got up, and sat down beside her, and put his arm around her waist.
"No, no. I'll have none of that. All that sort of thing is over between us."
He looked at her inquisitively, not knowing how to act.
"I know you've had a hard time, Esther. Tell me about it. What did you do when you left Woodview?" He unfortunately added, "Did you ever meet any one since that you cared for?"
The question irritated her, and she said, "It don't matter to you who I met or what I went through."
The conversation paused. William spoke about the Barfields, and Esther could not but listen to the tale of what had happened at Woodview during the last eight years.
Woodview had been all her unhappiness and all her misfortune. She had gone there when the sap of life was flowing fastest in her, and Woodview had become the most precise and distinct vision she had gathered from life. She remembered that wholesome and ample country house, with its park and its down lands, and the valley farm, sheltered by the long lines of elms. She remembered the race-horses, their slight forms showing under the grey clothing, the round black eyes looking out through the eyelet holes in the hanging hoods, the odd little boys astride--a string of six or seven passing always before the kitchen windows, going through the paddock gate under the bunched evergreens. She remembered the rejoicings when the horse won at Goodwood, and the ball at the Shoreham Gardens. Woodview had meant too much in her life to be forgotten; its hillside and its people were drawn out in sharp outline on her mind. Something in William's voice recalled her from her reverie, and she heard him say--
"The poor Gaffer, 'e never got over it; it regular broke 'im up. I forgot to tell you, it was Ginger who was riding. It appears that he did all he knew; he lost start, he tried to get shut in, but it warn't no go, luck was against them; the 'orse was full of running, and, of course, he couldn't sit down and saw his blooming 'ead off, right in th' middle of the course, with Sir Thomas's (that's the 'andicapper) field-glasses on him. He'd have been warned off the blooming 'eath, and he couldn't afford that, even to save his own father. The 'orse won in a canter: they clapped eight stun on him for the Cambridgeshire. It broke the Gaffer's 'eart. He had to sell off his 'orses, and he died soon after the sale. He died of consumption. It generally takes them off earlier; but they say it is in the family. Miss May----"