Eve sent the girl into the village to see if she could find him or hear tidings of him. The girl ran out without her bonnet, partaking her mistress's anxiety, but did not return for nearly half an hour, that seemed an age to Eve. The girl had lost some time by going to Josh Grace for information. Grace's house stood in an orchard; so he was the unlikeliest man in the village to have seen David. She set against this trivial circumstance the weighty one that he was her sweetheart, and went to him first.
“I hain't a-sin him, Sue; thee hadst better ask at the blacksmith's shop,” said Joshua Grace.
Susan profited by this hint, and learned at the blacksmith's shop that David had gone by up the road about six in the morning, walking very fast. She brought the news to Eve.
“Toward Royston?”
“Yes, miss; but, la! he won't ever think to go all the way to Royston—without his breakfast.”
“That will do, Susan. I think I know what he is gone for.”
On the servant retiring, her assumed firmness left her.
“On the road she is to travel! and his rival with her. What mad act is he going to do? Heaven have mercy on him, and me, and her!”
Eve knew what was in the man's blood. She sat trembling at home till she could bear it no longer. She put on her bonnet, and sallied out on the road to Royston, determined to stop the carriage, profess to have business at Royston, and take a seat beside Mr. Fountain. She felt that the very sight of her might prevent David from committing any great rashness or folly. On reaching the high road, she observed a fresh track of narrow wheels, that her rustic experience told her could only be those of a four-wheeled carriage, and, making inquiries, she found she was too late; carriage and riders had gone on before.
Her heart sank. Too late by a few minutes; but somehow she could not turn back. She walked as fast as she could after the gay cavalcade, a prey to one of those female anxieties we have all laughed at as extravagant, proved unreasonable, and sometimes found prophetic.