This long meadow bordered a lane, which their footpath, at the end of
it was to cross, and when the party had all reached the gate of exit,
the carriage advancing in the same direction, which had been some time
heard, was just coming up, and proved to be Admiral Croft's gig. He
and his wife had taken their intended drive, and were returning home.
Upon hearing how long a walk the young people had engaged in, they
kindly offered a seat to any lady who might be particularly tired; it
would save her a full mile, and they were going through Uppercross.
The invitation was general, and generally declined. The Miss Musgroves
were not at all tired, and Mary was either offended, by not being asked
before any of the others, or what Louisa called the Elliot pride could
not endure to make a third in a one horse chaise.
The walking party had crossed the lane, and were surmounting an
opposite stile, and the Admiral was putting his horse in motion again,
when Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment to say something
to his sister. The something might be guessed by its effects.
"Miss Elliot, I am sure you are tired," cried Mrs Croft. "Do let us
have the pleasure of taking you home. Here is excellent room for
three, I assure you. If we were all like you, I believe we might sit
four. You must, indeed, you must."
Anne was still in the lane; and though instinctively beginning to
decline, she was not allowed to proceed. The Admiral's kind urgency
came in support of his wife's; they would not be refused; they
compressed themselves into the smallest possible space to leave her a
corner, and Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her,
and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage.
Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had
placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she
owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give
her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition
towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little
circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She
understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be
unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with
high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and
though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer,
without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former
sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship;
it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not
contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that
she knew not which prevailed.