pened by Jessie Cartwright,
who, accompanied by one of her sisters, was bringing Emily some fine
grapes, purchased, in the Cartwright manner, without regard to expense.
The girls naturally had their curiosity excited by the stranger of
interesting, even of aristocratic, appearance, who, as he hurried by,
east at them a searching look.

'Now, who ever may that be?' murmured Jessie, as she approached the
door.

'A doctor, I dare say,' was her sister's suggestion.

'A doctor! Not he, indeed. He has something to do with Emily, depend
upon it.'

The servant, opening to them, had to report that Miss Hood was too
unwell to-day to receive visitors. Jessie would dearly have liked to ask
who it was that apparently had been an exception, but even she lacked
the assurance necessary to the putting of such a question. The girls
left their offering, and went their way home; the stranger afforded
matter for conversation throughout the walk.

Wilfrid did not go straight to the Baxendales'. In his distracted state
he felt it impossible to sit through luncheon, and he could not
immediately decide how to meet Mrs. Baxendale, whether to take her into
his confidence or to preserve silence on what had happened. He was not
sure that he would be justified in disclosing the details of such an
interview; did he not owe it to Emily to refrain from submitting her
action to the judgment of any third person? If in truth she were still
suffering from the effects of her illness, it was worse than unkind to
repeat her words; if, on the other hand, her decision came of adequate
motives, or such as her sound intelligence deemed adequate, was it
possible to violate the confidence implied in such a conversation
between her and himself? Till his mind had assumed some degree of
calmness, he could not trust himself to return to the house. Turning
from the main road at a point just before the bridge over the river, he
kept on the outskirts of the town, and continued walking till he had
almost made the circuit of Dunfield. His speed was that of a man who
hastened with some express object; his limbs seemed spurred to activity
by the gallop of his thoughts. His reason would scarcely accept the
evidence of consciousness that he had indeed just heard such things from
Emily's lips; it was too monstrous for belief; a resolute incredulity
sustained him beneath a blow which, could he have felt it to be meant in
very earnest, would have deprived him of his senses.