“Why shouldn’t it be?” said Frances.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Maggie coloured suddenly and vividly. “I just wondered, that’s all. And then you’re coming back? You will come back, won’t you?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if I came back to Mrs. Hearn,” said Frances. “But, Maggie, tell me what makes you ask about Mr. Rotherby! What do you know about him?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” said Maggie quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked. But Arthur knows him—and hates him. Please don’t let’s talk about him—and I wouldn’t go to see him if I were you. He’s a bad man. Ah, here comes Oliver to fetch you! Good-bye, dear Frances, and just a hundred thousand thanks for everything.”
She responded warmly to Frances’ embrace, and returned to her butter-making with a song on her lips and gladness in her eyes.
“Yes, I should just think we are grateful,” said Oliver, as he followed Frances out. “Arthur has been as decent as he knows how, and it’s all thanks to you. Hope you’ll make a match of it before long, Miss Thorold, when better times come. You won’t want to wait as long as we did.”
They all treated her thus, as if her marriage to Arthur were a foregone conclusion, cheerily disregarding the fact that neither she nor Arthur had given them any justification for so doing. They had in fact barely seen one another since that night in the garden, now two days past; and she had even begun to wonder if he would let her go without a word of farewell. Old Mr. Dermot was better, would soon be downstairs again, they said, and his son had returned to his work on the farm, appearing only at meals and then for very brief intervals.
She had taken leave of everyone else, save Oliver who was to drive her to the station, and time was too short for lingering. She gave up hope at last, as she climbed into the cart. Roger was nowhere to be seen, so evidently his master was not in the vicinity. Perhaps he had not grasped the fact that she was going! Perhaps he had forgotten the hour! Perhaps—and somehow this was a supposition to which she clung instinctively for comfort—perhaps he had decided that he could not face the parting. In any case, he was not there, and her heart was heavy as they trotted out on to the moorland road. She felt she could have endured anything more easily than to be suffered to go without a sign.
The sky was dark with clouds that drove rapidly but unendingly before a west wind. The chill of coming rain was in the air, and the great heads of the tors were wrapped in drifting mist-wreaths. The scent of the bogs came to Frances with a poignant sense of regret.
“I shall be home-sick for this when I get away,” she said.