"About my getting to Exbury?" she said.
"I have been thinking," responded Giles, with tender deference, "that
you had better stay where you are for the present, if you wish not to
be caught. I need not tell you that the place is yours as long as you
like; and perhaps in a day or two, finding you absent, he will go away.
At any rate, in two or three days I could do anything to assist--such
as make inquiries, or go a great way towards Sherton-Abbas with you;
for the cider season will soon be coming on, and I want to run down to
the Vale to see how the crops are, and I shall go by the Sherton road.
But for a day or two I am busy here." He was hoping that by the time
mentioned he would be strong enough to engage himself actively on her
behalf. "I hope you do not feel over-much melancholy in being a
prisoner?"
She declared that she did not mind it; but she sighed.
From long acquaintance they could read each other's heart-symptoms like
books of large type. "I fear you are sorry you came," said Giles, "and
that you think I should have advised you more firmly than I did not to
stay."
"Oh no, dear, dear friend," answered Grace, with a heaving bosom.
"Don't think that that is what I regret. What I regret is my enforced
treatment of you--dislodging you, excluding you from your own house.
Why should I not speak out? You know what I feel for you--what I have
felt for no other living man, what I shall never feel for a man again!
But as I have vowed myself to somebody else than you, and cannot be
released, I must behave as I do behave, and keep that vow. I am not
bound to him by any divine law, after what he has done; but I have
promised, and I will pay."
The rest of the evening was passed in his handing her such things as
she would require the next day, and casual remarks thereupon, an
occupation which diverted her mind to some degree from pathetic views
of her attitude towards him, and of her life in general. The only
infringement--if infringement it could be called--of his predetermined
bearing towards her was an involuntary pressing of her hand to his lips
when she put it through the casement to bid him good-night. He knew
she was weeping, though he could not see her tears.
She again entreated his forgiveness for so selfishly appropriating the
cottage. But it would only be for a day or two more, she thought,
since go she must.