Meanwhile she went her quiet way, sometimes aided by Lucas, but more often settling her affairs alone, neither attempting nor desiring to look into the future.
The news of Sir Giles's illness spread rapidly through the neighbourhood, and people began to be very kind to her. She knew no one intimately. Her husband's churlishness had deprived her of almost all social intercourse, but never before had she realised how completely he was held responsible for her aloofness.
Privately, she would have preferred to maintain her seclusion, but it was not in her to be ungracious. She felt bound to accept the ready sympathy extended to her. It touched her, even though, had the choice been hers, she would have done without it. Lucas also urged her in his kindly fashion not to lead a hermit's existence. Mrs. Errol was insistent upon the point.
"Don't you do it, dear," was her exhortation. "There may not be much good to be got out of society, I'll admit. But it's one better than solitude. Don't you shut yourself up and fret. I reckon the Lord didn't herd us together for nothing, and it's His scheme of creation anyway."
And so Anne tried to be cordial; with the result that on a certain morning in early May there reached her a short friendly note from Mrs. Damer, wife of the M.F.H., begging her to dine with them quite informally on the following night.
"There will only be a few of us, all intimate friends," the note said.
"Do come. I have been longing to ask you for such an age."
Anne's brows drew together a little over the note. She had always liked Mrs. Damer, but her taste for dinner-parties was a minus quantity. Yet she knew that the invitation had been sent in sheer kindness. Mrs. Damer was always kind to everyone, and it was not the fashion among her circle of friends to disappoint her.
Anne considered the matter, contemplated an excuse, finally rejected it, and wrote an acceptance.
She wore the dress of shimmering green in which she had appeared at the Hunt Ball. Vividly the memory of that night swept across her. She had not worn it since, and scarcely knew what impulse moved her to don it now. It well became her stately figure. Dimsdale, awaiting her departure at the hall-door, looked at her with the admiring reverence he might have bestowed upon a queen.
Again, during her drive through the dark, the memory of that winter night flashed back upon her. She recalled that smooth, noiseless journey in which she had seemed to be borne upon wings. She recalled her misery and her weariness, her dream and her awakening. Nap had been very good to her that night. He had won her confidence, her gratitude, her friendship. His reputation notwithstanding, she had trusted him fully, and she had not found him wanting. A faint sigh rose to her lips. She was beginning to miss this friend of hers.