That her father would not see her, even if she entreated him, had been the one thing that had not seemed possible to the daughter who loved him.
During the long drive back to N——town, his message kept running in her head: "As we sow, so we must reap;—both she and I; both father and child".
It was burnt into her brain and into her heart. She saw it when she shut her eyes; she heard it when she stopped her ears.
"It is the hopeless law of all one's life," she thought. "And there is no going against it. Father does not even try to. He might have tried! No, no; it was not his fault. He was right."
And as she had attempted a hundred times before in her girlhood to justify him to herself when he might have stood up for his daughter and did not, so her tired brain tried to justify him now.
She would rather believe that she was too bad for forgiveness, than that he had not depth of affection enough to be forgiving.
She was terribly anxious about him too. Mrs. Russelthorpe had said that he was better; but then she had also declared that it might be his "death warrant" if he were suddenly awaked. Surely that did not sound as if he were out of danger. She went over the whole interview again, and had just got to the climax for the twentieth time, when the stopping of the carriage brought her with a jerk from the garden at Lupcombe to the busy street of N——town, and the entrance of the "Pig and Whistle".
"Have we arrived?" said Meg, getting out as if she were in a dream. "I thought we had just started!"
The landlord, who had bustled to the door at the sound of wheels, looked at her inquisitively. The preacher's wife, about whom there was a very romantic story, had always interested him. He had thought her a very gentle-mannered and sweet-voiced woman, and, for his part, rather admired her funny accent and "foreign" ways. He was full of wonder just now. It was only the gentry who ordered carriages in that way. The idea of Barnabas Thorpe's wife posting to Lupcombe! A fifteen-shilling drive! But he had seen the gold in her purse; she had evidently enough money to pay.
How very sad she looked! The distressed expression in her eyes touched him. "Come in, ma'am, and have a sup o' some'ut," he said good-naturedly. "The 'eat's been too much for you! I wouldn't ask a lady into the bar; an' I know as Barnabas Thorpe's wife won't touch good liquor; but, if you'll honour me by coming into the parlour, I'll bring you a cup of tea in a trice. You look fit to drop; and, if I might make so bold, just one atom of brandy in it would be neither here nor there, and would do you no harm at all. Now I won't take 'No,' ma'am, though your husband do try to damage my trade. Just you come in and sit a bit, while the horse is changed."