ly
still; and you won't have long to wait, to my reckoning.'

She fell into bitter repentance, and kissed him in her anguish. 'Don't
say that!' she cried. 'Tell me what to do?'

'If you'll leave me for an hour or two I'll think. Drive to the market
and back--the carriage is at the door--and I'll try to collect my senses.
Dinner can be put back till you return.'

In a few minutes she was dressed, and the carriage bore her up the hill
which divided the village and manor from the market-town.

CHAPTER V

A quarter of an hour brought her into the High Street, and for want of a
more important errand she called at the harness-maker's for a dog-collar
that she required.

It happened to be market-day, and Nicholas, having postponed the
engagements which called him thither to keep the appointment with her in
the Sallows, rushed off at the end of the afternoon to attend to them as
well as he could. Arriving thus in a great hurry on account of the
lateness of the hour, he still retained the wild, amphibious appearance
which had marked him when he came up from the meadows to her side--an
exceptional condition of things which had scarcely ever before occurred.
When she crossed the pavement from the shop door, the shopman bowing and
escorting her to the carriage, Nicholas chanced to be standing at the
road-waggon office, talking to the master of the waggons. There were a
good many people about, and those near paused and looked at her transit,
in the full stroke of the level October sun, which went under the brims
of their hats, and pierced through their button-holes. From the group
she heard murmured the words: 'Mrs. Nicholas Long.'

The unexpected remark, not without distinct satire in its tone, took her
so greatly by surprise that she was confounded. Nicholas was by this
time nearer, though coming against the sun he had not yet perceived her.
Influenced by her father's lecture, she felt angry with him for being
there and causing this awkwardness. Her notice of him was therefore
slight, supercilious perhaps, slurred over; and her vexation at his
presence showed distinctly in her face as she sat down in her seat.
Instead of catching his waiting eye, she positively turned her head away.

A moment after she was sorry she had treated him so; but he was gone.

Reaching home she found on her dressing-table a note from her father. The
statement was brief:

I have considered and am of the same opinion. You must