was already
inevitable, and she sank into a uniformity of sadness.

She turned in the saddle and looked back. They were now on an open
table-land, whose altitude still gave her a view of the sea by
Endelstow. She looked longingly at that spot.

During this little revulsion of feeling Pansy had been still advancing,
and Elfride felt it would be absurd to turn her little mare's head the
other way. 'Still,' she thought, 'if I had a mamma at home I WOULD go
back!'

And making one of those stealthy movements by which women let their
hearts juggle with their brains, she did put the horse's head about, as
if unconsciously, and went at a hand-gallop towards home for more than
a mile. By this time, from the inveterate habit of valuing what we
have renounced directly the alternative is chosen, the thought of her
forsaken Stephen recalled her, and she turned about, and cantered on to
St. Launce's again.

This miserable strife of thought now began to rage in all its wildness.
Overwrought and trembling, she dropped the rein upon Pansy's shoulders,
and vowed she would be led whither the horse would take her.

Pansy slackened her pace to a walk, and walked on with her agitated
burden for three or four minutes. At the expiration of this time they
had come to a little by-way on the right, leading down a slope to a pool
of water. The pony stopped, looked towards the pool, and then advanced
and stooped to drink.

Elfride looked at her watch and discovered that if she were going to
reach St. Launce's early enough to change her dress at the Falcon,
and get a chance of some early train to Plymouth--there were only two
available--it was necessary to proceed at once.

She was impatient. It seemed as if Pansy would never stop drinking; and
the repose of the pool, the idle motions of the insects and flies upon
it, the placid waving of the flags, the leaf-skeletons, like Genoese
filigree, placidly sleeping at the bottom, by their contrast with her
own turmoil made her impatience greater.

Pansy did turn at last, and went up the slope again to the high-road.
The pony came upon it, and stood cross-wise, looking up and down.
Elfride's heart throbbed erratically, and she thought, 'Horses, if left
to themselves, make for where they are best fed. Pansy will go home.'

Pansy turned and walked on towards St. Launce's

Pansy at home, during summer, had little but grass to live on. After a
run to St. Launce's she always had a feed of corn to s