If she does not act according to this letter, she will
repent, as the woman who writes it has repented. The secrecy Miss
Harleth will feel herself bound in honor to guard.

Gwendolen felt an inward shock, but her immediate thought was, "It is
come in time." It lay in her youthfulness that she was absorbed by the
idea of the revelation to be made, and had not even a momentary
suspicion of contrivance that could justify her in showing the letter.
Her mind gathered itself up at once into the resolution, that she would
manage to go unobserved to the Whispering Stones; and thrusting the
letter into her pocket she turned back to rejoin the company, with that
sense of having something to conceal which to her nature had a bracing
quality and helped her to be mistress of herself.

It was a surprise to every one that Grandcourt was not, like the other
smokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. "We shall
alight on him by-and-by," said Lord Brackenshaw; "he can't be gone
far." At any rate, no man could be waited for. This apparent
forgetfulness might be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed
in thinking of the beloved object as to forget an appointment which
would bring him into her actual presence. And the good-natured Earl
gave Gwendolen a distant jocose hint to that effect, which she took
with suitable quietude. But the thought in her mind was "Can he too be
starting away from a decision?" It was not exactly a pleasant thought
to her; but it was near the truth. "Starting away," however, was not
the right expression for the languor of intention that came over
Grandcourt, like a fit of diseased numbness, when an end seemed within
easy reach: to desist then, when all expectation was to the contrary,
became another gratification of mere will, sublimely independent of
definite motive. At that moment he had begun a second large cigar in a
vague, hazy obstinacy which, if Lush or any other mortal who might be
insulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a request
for his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of his
cigar, to say in an undertone, "You'll be kind enough to go to the
devil, will you?"

But he was not interrupted, and the rovers set off without any visible
depression of spirits, leaving behind only a few of the less vigorous
ladies, including Mrs. Davilow, who preferred a quiet stroll free from
obligation to keep up with others. The enjoyment of the day