It was with no definite object of going in the direction of Joan’s present residence, yet there was doubtless some thought of her hovering in his mind; so that when, at a distance of some mile and a half from Hurst, he came suddenly face to face with her at a turning in the road, he flushed indeed, but without much surprise, as if the person who had been in his thoughts had become on the instant present to him in the flesh.
She was in the company of a stout country lass, who was carrying a parcel under her cloak.
Tregenna bowed, but, except for the space of half a second, did not stop. And in return for the slightly resentful, cold and distant curtsey she gave him, he held his head very high in the air, and looked her full in the face with a defiant expression.
Perceiving this, Joan went suddenly white; and as he went on, she presently halted, and turned to look after him. Now, it happened that Tregenna, although he had made up his mind that he would not be guilty of such a weakness, did in his turn stop and give a hasty glance back at her.
Joan, seeing that he instantly went on again, could bear it no longer; he should not go like that, without knowing how little she cared. So she hastily bade her companion walk on, saying that she would overtake her shortly; and then she called, in a haughty and distant tone—
“Mr. Tregenna!”
And of course he had not gone far enough not to hear her.
He turned, however, in the most leisurely way possible, and walked back with a very lofty air of doing something he was much disinclined to do.
“Madam,” said he, when he had come quite near, “you called to me, I believe.”
“I did, sir,” said Joan, in a tone as lofty as his own. “I did but wish to ask you—whether the stage-wagon has passed this way.”