She saw him standing in the yard between the house and the out-houses, bending over something he was carrying; she saw him above the currant and gooseberry bush hedge visible through the opening of the taller fruit-trees. She shuddered, but she kept on her way. Soon she was under the trees of the park; then turned down to the yard; nothing divided them but the outhouse wall; then she came quite forward.
He stood with turned-up sleeves--his cuffs were off--in a yellow tussore silk coat, the same probably in which he had arrived two years ago, washing a travelling trunk under the pump; all the labels pasted on by the railway people, one on top of the other, were to be taken off; was he thinking of going away? He was sun-burnt and thin, seen in profile his face seemed sharper; then he heard her step and looked up--looked up into her tear-stained beseeching face! No trace of her former bright-coloured dresses; a dark cotton dress with a belt round her waist, a broad, shady, straw hat with a brown ribbon, a shawl hanging on her arm. Her tears burst forth, bitterly, despairingly: "Edward!" she could get no further.
For he dropped the trunk and drew himself upright; a voice with a sort of break in it said:
"I can not forgive you, Josephine."
"Edward, let me explain myself!" She turned to the house, in horror and despair at his stern face; but he fancied she wanted to go in.
"You shall never enter there!" and he put his hands on his sides as though he were keeping guard.
XIII.
Tuft left the supper-table and went into his study; but he did not notice the envelope as he did not look at the desk. He went for a walk, which he often did in the evenings; if Josephine had been down she would have gone with him, he thought. He walked for an hour; it was Saturday and he got ready his sermon for the morrow. When he got home he sat down by the window with a book he was in want of; he read, he dawdled about, and read again till ten o'clock.
He went up to bed but did not find Josephine, neither was she in her own room, in fact, nowhere all over the house. Then he went down to the study again, he would wait for her down there; but where could she be? Gone to see some sick person? He knew of none. In mere absence of mind he took up the envelope as he passed the desk; his name was outside--was it written in Josephine's hand? He turned hot and went to the window the better to see. There was no seal; but on the top of several papers lay a little note with the following words from Josephine:
"I have gone to him for my life's sake."