Besides, should she not see her own father?
Twice since she had left home she had written a short letter, giving no address and no clue to her whereabouts, saying she was well and happy, and that her father was to have faith in her and think the best he could.
And now she was going to see him and tell him all, for George was taking her back as his wife, and there would be no need for further concealment.
At any other time the idea of seeing her father would have made her supremely happy. She had looked forward to the day when she might put her arms round his neck and tell him all so eagerly; and now that the time had come she was miserable. Alas! it was the old story. How often the cherished dream of our life is accomplished amid surroundings which make it a hollow mockery, and only serve to intensify the bitter disappointment! We can look back upon yesterday with regret, and we can look forward to to-morrow with pleasure; but, alas! to-day is ever present, and to-day is generally a very dull affair.
George and Bess sauntered along the road, dusty, tired, and travel-stained. George’s face was white and haggard, and he had let his beard grow during the fortnight, which did not add to the picturesqueness of his appearance. Bess, too, in the hurried journeyings and constant moving from pillar to post, had neglected her toilette somewhat, and had had to make shift as best she could; so that as they tramped along they might easily have been mistaken for something much lower in the social scale than the heir to the Heritage estates and his young wife.
‘We must not get to the house till dusk, Bess,’ said George, as they strolled along. ‘I couldn’t go in this sight in broad daylight.’
‘No,’ answered Bess; ‘it will be best to wait till it’s dusk, George dear; there’ll be nobody about then. Old Dick will have gone home, and there’ll only be father.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed George eagerly, ‘I’d forgotten that. You can go first and see your father, and I can come and slip into the lodge and wait about till the coast is clear, and then go up to the house.’ Now that he was nearing his home his heart was beginning to fail him, and the old pride, which trouble had broken down for a while, was beginning to reassert itself.
Just outside the village in which Heritage Park stands there is a small wood. The high road skirts it, and it forms a tempting place for the dusty wayfarer to seek shelter in for a while.
Many a tramp on his road from workhouse to workhouse wanders into this wood, and, flinging himself down, enjoys a siesta, forgetting his troubles and dreaming such dreams as it pleases Nature to send him in the place of realities.