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'Then you don't love me?' he said, drawing back from her, he
also, as though her touch had burnt him; and then, as she
made no answer, he repeated with another intonation,
imperious and yet still pathetic, 'You don't love me, DO you,
DO you?'
'I don't know,' she replied. 'Why do you ask me? Oh, how
should I know? It has all been lies together - lies, and
lies, and lies!'
He cried her name sharply, like a man who has taken a
physical hurt, and that was the last word that either of them
spoke until they reached Thymebury Junction.
This was a station isolated in the midst of moorlands, yet
lying on the great up line to London. The nearest town,
Thymebury itself, was seven miles distant along the branch
they call the Vale of Thyme Railway. It was now nearly half
an hour past noon, the down train had just gone by, and there
would be no more traffic at the junction until half-past
three, when the local train comes in to meet the up express
at a quarter before four. The stationmaster had already gone
off to his garden, which was half a mile away in a hollow of
the moor; a porter, who was just leaving, took charge of the
phaeton, and promised to return it before night to Naseby
House; only a deaf, snuffy, and stern old man remained to
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