"No, sir," she told him quite firmly, though she smiled. "I cannot wait. I must go."

He did not argue further but sighed, patted her hand, and then impulsively pulled her into a hug as his wife had done. By that time she was in danger of losing the inside seat he had quite adamantly insisted upon. He had even slipped the coachman a tip to ensure her a window seat for the long journey to the village of Upper Newbury in Dorsetshire.

But a large woman, who looked as if she might be ready to take on any coachman or any army captain who dared cross her, or indeed both at once, was already settling herself into the only window seat still available.

The young woman had to squeeze herself into a middle seat. But she did not appear to share the captain's wrath. She smiled and lifted a hand in farewell. As she did so, the guard's horn blew again as a warning to everyone nearby that the stage was about to begin its journey.

Mrs. Harris's gloved hand was still raised in an answering farewell wave after the stagecoach had rumbled out of the yard, turned onto the street, and disappeared from sight.

"I have never in my life known anyone so stubborn," she said, using her handkerchief again. "Or anyone so dear. What will become of her, Gordon?"

The captain sighed once more. "I fear she is doing the wrong thing," he said. "Almost a year and a half has passed, and what seemed like madness even at the time will doubtless be a total impossibility now. But she does not understand."

"Her sudden appearance is going to come as a dreadful shock," Mrs. Harris said. "Oh, foolish girl to have refused to delay even a few days while you wrote a letter. How will she manage, Gordon? She is so small and so frail and so—so innocent. I fear for her."

"For as long as I have known Lily," Captain Harris replied, "she has looked much the same, though admittedly she is thinner than she used to be. The appearance of fragility and innocence are largely illusory, though. We know that she has been through a great deal that would severely test the roughest and toughest of my men. But she must have experienced worse things that we can only imagine."