The Woodlanders

Thus the subject had ended in the yard. Meanwhile, the passive cause

of all this loss still regarded the scene. She was beautifully

dressed; she was seated in the most comfortable room that the inn

afforded; her long journey had been full of variety, and almost

luxuriously performed--for Fitzpiers did not study economy where

pleasure was in question. Hence it perhaps arose that Giles and all

his belongings seemed sorry and common to her for the moment--moving in

a plane so far removed from her own of late that she could scarcely

believe she had ever found congruity therein. "No--I could never have

married him!" she said, gently shaking her head. "Dear father was

right. It would have been too coarse a life for me." And she looked at

the rings of sapphire and opal upon her white and slender fingers that

had been gifts from Fitzpiers.

Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned, and with a little of the

above-described pride of life--easily to be understood, and possibly

excused, in a young, inexperienced woman who thought she had married

well--she said at last, with a smile on her lips, "Mr. Winterborne!"

He appeared to take no heed, and she said a second time, "Mr.

Winterborne!"

Even now he seemed not to hear, though a person close enough to him to

see the expression of his face might have doubted it; and she said a

third time, with a timid loudness, "Mr. Winterborne! What, have you

forgotten my voice?" She remained with her lips parted in a welcoming

smile.

He turned without surprise, and came deliberately towards the window.

"Why do you call me?" he said, with a sternness that took her

completely unawares, his face being now pale. "Is it not enough that

you see me here moiling and muddling for my daily bread while you are

sitting there in your success, that you can't refrain from opening old

wounds by calling out my name?"

She flushed, and was struck dumb for some moments; but she forgave his

unreasoning anger, knowing so well in what it had its root. "I am sorry

I offended you by speaking," she replied, meekly. "Believe me, I did

not intend to do that. I could hardly sit here so near you without a

word of recognition."

Winterborne's heart had swollen big, and his eyes grown moist by this

time, so much had the gentle answer of that familiar voice moved him.

He assured her hurriedly, and without looking at her, that he was not

angry. He then managed to ask her, in a clumsy, constrained way, if

she had had a pleasant journey, and seen many interesting sights. She

spoke of a few places that she had visited, and so the time passed till

he withdrew to take his place at one of the levers which pulled round

the screw.