She did not see all of this, by any means, as she rode reflectively homewards. Her knowledge and experience included perhaps a very small part of it as conscious reflection, and there was no ordered sequence of thought or discovery in the workings of her girl's mind. Some progression, however, there was, in little spurts of feeling and enlightenment. She was more doubtful of her lover, more doubtful of the strength of her own attachment to him, more inclined to return to her loving allegiance to her father, whatever the future should hold for her.
This last impulse of affection was the most significant outcome of all her aroused sensibilities. She would not at any time have acknowledged that he had been right and she had been wrong. But she felt the channel of her love for him cleared of obstruction. It flowed towards him. It would be good to give it expression, and gain in return the old happy signs of his tenderness and devotion towards her. She wanted to see him at once, and behave to him as his spoilt loving child, and rather hoped that the fortunes of the chase would bring him home before the rest, so that she might have a cosy companionable little time with him alone.
In the afternoon, as the short winter day began to draw in, having read and lightly slept, her young blood roused her to activity again. She would go and see Mollie, and persuade her to come back to tea with her, so that they could talk confidentially together. Or if she had to stay to tea at Stone Cottage, because of Mrs. Walter, perhaps Mollie would come back with her afterwards.
She put on her coat and hat, and went out as the dusk was falling over the quiet spaces of the park. As she neared the gates she heard the trot of a horse on the road outside, and wondered if it was her father who was coming home. She had forgotten her wish that he would do so, as it had seemed so little likely of fulfilment, but made up her mind to go back with him if it should happily be he.
It was a man, who passed the gates at a sharp trot, not turning his head to look inside them. The light was not too far gone for her to recognise, with a start of surprise, the horsemanlike figure of Bertie Pemberton, whom she had imagined many miles away. The hunt had set directly away from Abington, and was not likely to have worked back so far in this direction. Nor could Abington conceivably be on Bertie's homeward road, even supposing him so far to have departed from his usual habits as to have taken it before the end of the day. What was he doing here?
She thought she knew, and walked on down the road to the village at a slightly faster pace, with a keen sense of pleasure and excitement at her breast. She saw him come out of the stable of the inn, on foot, and walk up the village street at the head of which stood Stone Cottage, at a pace faster than her own.
Then she turned and went back, smiling to herself, but a little melancholy too. She was not so happy as Mollie was likely to be in a very short time.