On the day when he could have had a reply from East Angels, there was no letter from the South. He waited twenty-four hours to allow for delays or accident.
Still nothing.
Margaret did not then intend to reply; it was a case where she would have written immediately (or asked Aunt Katrina to write), if she had intended to reply at all.
"I am not worthy even to be spoken to, it seems; I am the mud under her feet. But it shall not be so easy as she thinks!"
He took the next train bound for Washington, Richmond, and the St. John's River. It was the third time he had made the long journey within the space of four weeks.
He was in such a fever now—fever of irritation and anxiety—that he did not any longer try to keep up his trust in her, to be certain, as he had endeavored to be during the intervening time, that she had been influenced by what he had said, or by her own more deliberate reflections, and that in any case, whether he was to be informed of it or kept in ignorance, she was not going back to Lanse. It now seemed to him possible that, in her strange self-sacrificing sense of duty, she might go. He ground his teeth at the thought.
The leisurely train was crossing the pine lands of North Carolina, making such long waits at grassy little stations to take on wood that those passengers who had a taste for botany had time to explore the surrounding country for flowers. A new thought came to him; it was that he need not have counted so carefully the days of the month, or depended upon that; perhaps she had not waited for the whole time to pass, perhaps she had gone to Fernandina, was already there. Meanwhile—the train crept.
"Oh, can you tell me—will I reach Fayetteville before dark?" said a girl behind him. He knew it was a girl by the voice. She was speaking, apparently, to some one who shared her seat.
This person, an older woman (again judging by the tone), was well informed as to the methods of reaching Fayetteville, the trains, and the hours. This matter settled, they went on talking.
"I have been up in the mountains teaching," the older woman presently remarked.