At that moment another horse neighed over the hill; they both looked round—no one was in sight. But Ruy answered with a neigh, and in the same instant stepped forward. Barnard pressed his knee; Ruy began to move faster. Barnard bowed; his voice was temporarily inarticulate, and he was gone.
In a few minutes, he gained the wagon-track; and, without looking back, pressed Ruy at a rapid pace up the ascent, and disappeared over the summit. She went back to the beech, and in the shadow watched the next ridge. In five minutes man and horse came into view, climbed, and went down, like a ship at sea beneath the horizon. She saw them for the third time passing over the third ridge, and then, knowing that she should not see them any farther, turned to go. She soon regained the lane, where a farmer on horseback overtook and passed her, raising his hat. It was his horse that had neighed to Ruy.
Felise walked swiftly, and in the centre of the lane. The dew had dried from the blue veronica and the cowslip. Instead of wandering from side to side, looking at the flowers, and touching the green sprays, she went straight on. She did not notice a blackbird’s noisy note as he sprang up startled from among the young brake fern. The oak-trunk which had formed her seat was not looked at. Her mind was full of one thought, and she did not regard outward circumstances.
A shepherd with his dog at a gateway saw her go by; a man riding a thill-horse met her, and forced his horse, with the harness hanging and jingling, up into the nettles and brambles, to give her a royal right of road; ten or twelve haymakers, men and women, were filing across the lane out of one field across to another. They halted, and let her pass through their ranks. Some children with them shouted joyously at the sight of her. Neither the touching of hats, nor the curtseys, nor the voices of the children calling to her, attracted her a moment. Her mind was full of one thought, and she saw nothing.
At home she immediately ran upstairs, shut the door, and sat down. In another moment she got up to look at herself in the glass. Her cheeks were scarlet, partly the exertion, partly sunburn, partly excitement. The sun had scorched her face; love had scorched her heart. What had she done? Was it well, or wrong? Did he understand? He must have understood. Yet, perhaps, he might not have done so; he would not look at her. Their eyes had met but once.
Her face, her neck, flushed scarlet; she felt as if her very fingers tingled with shame. That she should have shown him so plainly her meaning—that she should have actually held his horse by the bridle to stay him from leaving her!
With as violent a revulsion of feeling she laughed, caught up a brush, and brushed her hair, and revelled in the thought of her boldness. She wished she had done more.
“Why did I not hold his hand instead of his horse’s bridle?” she asked herself.
Suddenly she burst into tears, leant back, and became perfectly pale. A faintness came over her; everything before her eyes was black as if it was night. She did not faint—she slowly recovered; and, going to the window, began to sing in a low voice. A girl came round the corner of the house.
“Mary, bring me a rose for my hair.”
In that simple country household, Mary Shaw was their only attendant. She was, however, young and good-looking, pleasant, and almost a friend. There was much affection between them.
“You must be main lear [very hungry],” said Mary, when she brought the rose; “you have been up Ashpen.”
“I am—very hungry,” said Felise.
“Such a nice breakfast waiting for you.”
“I couldn’t eat a morsel,” said Felise. “How long the days are! I wish it was night!”
“It isn’t seven yet,” said Mary.
“Oh dear! These summer days are so long!”
“Yesterday you was saying how glad you were they was so long.”
“So I am.”
“There now! who’s to know what you means? That’s how all good-looking ladies goes on—that’s how they worries the menfolk.”
VII
After Barnard had ridden over the third ridge, uphill and down, at a merciless rate, he checked his speed: first to a trot, then to a walk, and finally halted altogether. Next he turned Ruy’s head away from home (a change Ruy did not much like), and slowly retraced the route he had come away from Felise Goring.
But at first not very rapidly. It is the first few steps that are difficult, even in sweet things: hesitation, trembling, indecision accompanies them. Once well started on the flowery path, and the pace constantly accelerates. In ten minutes he was at full gallop back towards her. He had not the least idea what he was going to do—what excuse he should make for returning—whether he would go so near as to speak, or what.
He soon saw that she had left the spot. He rode up to the solitary beech and dismounted, mechanically repeating what he had done when she was there. So great criminals go through a dumb show in their sleep of guilt; so great pleasure leads us to step again in our happy footmarks. He looked at the beech, because she had been there, and caught sight of the incision in the bark. What was this?
The cuts were so thin, he guessed at once it was her work: a man would have slashed out larger strips. He traced the lines with his finger: one straight descending stroke, and a small V attached to it at the top on the right side. When his finger reached the end of the ascending groove, involuntarily he drew it down the uncut bark, as if another straight stroke had been there, and recognised in an instant what the incomplete
