Hither came Mark Baskerville on his way to Shaugh, and then a man stopped him and changed his plan. For some time he had neither seen nor heard from Cora, and unable longer to live with this cloud between them, Mark was now on his way to visit her.
Consideration had convinced him that he was much in fault, and that she did well to keep aloof until he came penitent back again; but he had already striven more than once to do so, and she had refused to see him. He told himself that it was natural she should feel angered at the past, and natural that she should be in no haste to make up so serious a quarrel.
But the catastrophe had now shrunk somewhat in his estimation, and he doubted not that Cora, during the passage of many days, also began to see it in its proper perspective. He did not wholly regret their difference, and certain words that she had spoken still stung painfully when he considered them; but the dominant hunger in his mind was to get back to her, kiss her lips and hear her voice again. He would be very circumspect henceforth, and doubtless so would she. He felt sure that Cora regretted their difference now, and that the time was over-ripe for reconciliation.
The next rehearsal would take place upon the following day, and Mark felt that friendly relations must be re-established before that event. He was on his road to see Cora and take no further denial, when her brother met him and stopped him.
"Lucky I ran against you," said Heathman; "I've got a letter for you from my sister, and meant to leave it on my way out over to Lee Moor. Coarse weather coming by the look of it."
"Thank you," answered Mark. "You've saved me a journey then. I was bound for Undershaugh."
Heathman, who knew that he bore evil news, departed quickly, while the other, with true instinct of sybarite, held the precious letter a moment before opening it.
It happened that Cora seldom wrote to him, for they met very often; but now, having a difficult thing to say, she sought this medium, and Mark, knowing not the truth, was glad.
"Like me—couldn't keep it up no more," he thought. "I almost wish she'd let me say I was sorry first; but she might have heard me say so a week ago, if she'd liked. Thank Heaven we shall be happy again before dark. I'll promise everything in the world she wants to-night—even to the ring with the blue stone she hungered after at Plymouth."
He looked round, then the wind hustled him and the rain broke in a tattered veil along the edge of the hill.