brought her
silently a cup of coffee and a plate with something to eat,
but both were refused.

'Are you ready, Prim?'

Primrose nervously put on her bonnet, which she had with
nervous unrest taken off; and Rollo offered his arm to Wych
Hazel.

'Let me go by myself,' she said--again not roughly, but as if
she could not help it. 'I am not going to run away.'

'In that case it is certainly not the arm of a jailor,' said
he, stooping down by her and smiling.

But the words, or the look, or something about them, very
nearly got the better of Wych Hazel's defences, and her eyes
flushed with tears.

'No--no,' she said under her breath. 'I will follow. Go on.'

'Certainly not _me_,' he answered. 'Go you with Prim, and I will
follow.'

One before and one behind!--thought the girl to herself,
comparing the manner of her entrance. She went on, not with
Prim, but swiftly ahead of her, and put herself in the
carriage, as she had brought herself out of the house. Prim
followed. Rollo mounted the box and took the reins, and,
having fresh horses from the inn, they drove off at a smart
pace. And Hazel, laying one hand on the sill of the open
window, leaned her head against the frame, and so, wrapped in
her black lace, sat looking out, with eyes that never seemed
to waver. Into the white moonshine,--which soon would give way
before the twilight 'which should be dawn and a to-morrow.'

For a long time Primrose bore this, thinking hard too on her
part. For she had much to think of, in connection with both
her companions. She was hurt for Rollo; she was grieved for
Wych Hazel; was there anything personal and private to herself
in her vexation at the needlessness of the trouble which was
affecting them? If there were, Primrose did not look at it
much. But it seemed very strange in her eyes that any one
should rebel against what was, to her, the honey sweetness of
Dane's authority. Strange that anything he disliked, should be
liked by anybody that had the happiness of his care. And
strange beyond strangeness, that this girl should slight such
words and looks as he bestowed upon her. Primrose knew how
deep the meaning of them was; she knew how great the grace of
them was; could it be possible Wych Hazel did not know? One
such word and look would have made her happy for days; upon a
few of them she could have lived a year. So it seemed to her.
She did not wish that they were hers; she did not repine that
they were another's;