of all, he divined and respected her disinclination for conversation. At intervals during the day he left her to go into the smoking-car to enjoy his pipe.
The view from the window was, on the whole, rather monotonous. But it would have had to be varied indeed to match the mental pictures that Nora's flying thoughts conjured up for her.
The dead level of her life at Tunbridge Wells had been a curious preparation for the violent changes of the last few months. How often when walking in the old-world garden with Miss Wickham she had had the sensation of stifling, oppressed by those vine-covered walls, and inwardly had likened herself to a prisoner. There were no walls now to confine her. Clear away to the sunset it was open. And yet she was more of a prisoner than she had ever been. And now she wore a fetter, albeit of gold, on her hand.
It had been her habit to think of herself with pity as friendless in those days; forgetful of the good doctor and his wife, Agnes Pringle and even Mr. Wynne, not to speak of her humbler friends, the gardener's wife and children, and the good Kate. Well, she was being punished for it now. It would be hard, indeed, to imagine a more friendless condition than hers. Rushing onward, farther and farther into the wilderness to make for herself a home miles from any human habitation; no woman, in all probability, to turn to in case of need. And, crowning loneliness, having ever at her side a man with whom she had been on terms of open enmity up to a few short hours before!
From time to time she stole furtive glances at him as he sat at her side; and once, when he had put his head back against the seat and pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his eyes and was seemingly asleep, she turned her head and gave him a long appraising look.
How big and strong and self-reliant he was. He was just the type of man who would go out into the wilderness and conquer it. And, although she had scoffed at his statement when he made it, she knew that he had brains. Yes, although his lack of education and refinement must often touch her on the raw, he was a man whom any woman could respect in her heart.
And when they clashed, as clash they must until she had tamed him a little, she would need every weapon in her woman's arsenal to save her from utter route; she realized that. But then, these big, rough men were always the first to respond to any appeal to their natural chivalry. If she found herself being worsted, there was always that to fall back upon.
If from some other world Miss Wickham could see her, how she must be smiling! Nora, herself, smiled at the thought. And at the thought of Agnes Pringle's outraged astonishment if she were to meet her husband now, before she had toned him down, as she meant to do. She recalled the chill finality of her friend's tone when in animadverting on the doctor's unfortunate assistant she had said: 'But, my dear, of course it would be impossible to marry anyone who wasn't a gentleman.'
If by some Arabian Night's trick she could suddenly transport herself and the sleeping Frank to Miss Pringle's side, she felt that that excellent lady's astonishment at seeing her descend from the Magic Carpet would be as nothing in comparison to her astonishment in being presented to Nora's husband.
Her mind had grown accustomed already to thinking of him as her husband; not, as yet, to thinking of herself as his wife.
At supper time they went into a car ahead, where Frank ate with his accustomed appetite and Nora pecked daintily at the cold chicken.
And now they were at Prentice. For some minutes before arriving, Frank, who had asked her a few moments before to change places with him, had been looking anxiously out of the window, his nose flattened against the glass. As they drew up to the station platform, he gave a shout.
'Good! There's old man Sharp. Luckily I remembered it was the day he generally drove over and wired him.'
'What for?'
'So that he could drive us home. He's a near neighbor; lives only about a mile beyond us. He's married, too. So you won't be entirely without a woman to complain to about me.'
'I should hardly be likely to do that,' said Nora stiffly.
'Bless your heart! I know you wouldn't: you're not that sort.'
'I hope she's not much like Gertie.'
'Gosh, no! A different breed of cats altogether.'
'Well, that's something to be thankful for.'
