"That is what I am trying to do; but I do not succeed. It is terribly lonely work sometimes."
"What a confession of weakness!"
He placed her in the saddle. "It may be. At any rate, it is the truth. But women do not believe in truth for its own sake; it strikes them as crude."
"You mean cruel," said Katharine Winthrop. She rode off, the groom and Gibbon following. He went back to the blacksmith's shop. The next day he went to Heidelberg.
But he had not seen the last of Corinne's old château. On the 25th of October he was again riding up the plane-tree avenue of Miolans, this time under bare boughs.
"Oh, John! dear John!" said Miss Pitcher, hurrying into the drawing-room when she was told he was there. "How glad I am to see you! But how did you know—I mean, how did you get here at this time of year?"
"By railway and on horseback," he answered. "I like autumn in the country. And I am very glad to see you looking so well, Aunt Sylvia."
But if Sylvia was well in body, she was ill at ease in mind. She began sentences and did not finish them; she often held her little handkerchief to her lips as if repressing herself. Cousin Walpole had gone to Geneva, "on business for Katharine." No, Katharine was not with him; she was out riding somewhere. She was not well, and needed the exercise. Katharine, too, was fond of autumn in the country. But Sylvia found it rainy. After a while Ford took leave, promising to return in the evening. When he reached the country road he paused, looking up and down it for a moment; then he turned his horse southward. It was a dreary day for a ride; a long autumn rain had soaked the ground, clouds covered the sky, and a raw wind was blowing. He rode at a rapid pace, and when he came towards Coppet he again examined the wet track, then turned towards the château. He was not mistaken; Mrs. Winthrop's horse was there. There was no groom this time; the horse was tied in the court-yard. Benjamin Franklin said that the lady was in the garden, and he said it muffled in a worsted cap and a long wadded coat that came to his heels. No doubt he permitted himself some wonder over the lady's taste.
The lady was at the end of the long walk as before. But to-day the long walk was a picture of desolation; all the bright leaves, faded and brown, were lying on the ground in heaps so sodden that the wind could not lift them, strongly as it blew. Across one end of this vista stretched the blank stone wall, its grayness streaked with wet spots; across the other rose the old château among the bare trees, cold, naked, and yellow, seeming to have already begun its long winter shiver. But men do not mind such things as women mind them. A dull sky and stretch of blank stone wall do not seem to them the end of the world—as they seemed at that moment to Katharine Winthrop. This time she heard his step; perhaps he intended that she should hear it. She turned.
Her face was pale; her eyes, with the dark shadows under them, looked larger than usual. She returned his greeting quietly; her trouble, whatever it was, did not apparently connect itself with him.