At length she took some food, and, refreshed by it, and warmed by
the fire, she sank asleep in her chair. Then Philip would fain have
spoken with Sylvia before the hour came at which he must return to
Monkshaven, but she eluded him, and went in search of Kester, whose
presence she had missed.
She had guessed some of the causes which kept him from greeting them
on their first return. But it was not as if she had shaped these
causes into the definite form of words. It is astonishing to look
back and find how differently constituted were the minds of most
people fifty or sixty years ago; they felt, they understood, without
going through reasoning or analytic processes, and if this was the
case among the more educated people, of course it was still more so
in the class to which Sylvia belonged. She knew by some sort of
intuition that if Philip accompanied them home (as, indeed, under
the circumstances, was so natural as to be almost unavoidable), the
old servant and friend of the family would absent himself; and so
she slipped away at the first possible moment to go in search of
him. There he was in the farm-yard, leaning over the gate that
opened into the home-field, apparently watching the poultry that
scratched and pecked at the new-springing grass with the utmost
relish. A little farther off were the ewes with their new-dropped
lambs, beyond that the great old thorn-tree with its round fresh
clusters of buds, again beyond that there was a glimpse of the vast
sunny rippling sea; but Sylvia knew well that Kester was looking at
none of these things. She went up to him and touched his arm. He
started from his reverie, and turned round upon her with his dim
eyes full of unshed tears. When he saw her black dress, her deep
mourning, he had hard work to keep from breaking out, but by dint of
a good brush of his eyes with the back of his hand, and a moment's
pause, he could look at her again with tolerable calmness.
'Why, Kester: why didst niver come to speak to us?' said Sylvia,
finding it necessary to be cheerful if she could.
'A dun know; niver ax me. A say, they'n gi'en Dick Simpson' (whose
evidence had been all material against poor Daniel Robson at the
trial) 'a' t' rotten eggs and fou' things they could o' Saturday,
they did,' continued he, in a tone of satisfaction; 'ay, and they
niver stopped t' see whether t' eggs were rotten or fresh when their
blood was up--nor whether stones was hard or soft,' he added, in a
lower tone, and chuckling a little.
Sylvia was silent. He looked at her now, chuckling still. Her face
was white, her lips tightened, her eyes a-flame. She drew a long
breath.