In the midst of her bewildered thoughts the express steamed into the little station, and the next minute Wolff had become a living, breathing reality, who swept down upon her and kissed her, regardless of all the Delfordites in the world. When he gave her time and opportunity to look at him, she felt that he, too, had undergone a change, and had taken on something of his surroundings. She would hardly have recognised him in the plain tweed suit and bowler hat. Neither became him so well as his uniform—to tell the truth, neither fitted him with any great exactitude, and it was all too evident that the suit was "ready-made." But the face, strong and tanned, flushed now with his joy at seeing her, was the same. It carried her memory back to that wonderful hour when he had lifted her out of the deepest despair to an intoxicating happiness, and she, too, forgot the Delfordites and the disapproving glances of her relations, and clung to him in a transport of delight.
"My little Nora!" he said, "the weeks have been months!"
"I am not sure that they have not been years!" she cried, laughing. And then she remembered her father and brother, and hastened to perform the ceremony of introduction. The three men shook hands, the Rev. John with solemnity, Miles with a covert sneer and a glance which took in every detail of the newcomer's person. Either the solemnity or the sneer worked depressingly on Wolff's spirits. He grew suddenly quiet and grave, though his eyes, when they met Nora's, flashed with a smothered happiness which she read and understood.
But the drive home in the narrow confines of the Delford brougham remained in Nora's memory as one of the most painful in her experience. The Rev. John persisted in his funereal solemnity, and talked of the weather, the journey, and the crops, very much as though he were trying to take their minds off the unpleasant circumstances which had brought them together. As to Miles, he sat in the far corner with his hands in his pockets and stared out of the window—when he was not staring the new-comer out of countenance.
Poor Nora! Never before had she greeted the appearance of the monument and the ugly church steeple with so much thankfulness.
"We are nearly there now," she said, looking up into Wolff's face. "Mother has been so impatient to see you."
Her eyes were full of a shamed, indignant apology, to which Wolff's quiet smile seemed to answer:
"What do I care for them? I would carry you off if there were forty of them, all forty times as disagreeable!" And he pressed her hand defiantly under the rugs.
At length the vicarage was reached. The queer, old-fashioned trunk was dragged down from its perch, and five minutes later Wolff was standing in the dimly lit drawing-room. Mrs. Ingestre had heard their coming, and came slowly and painfully forward. Her hands were outstretched, and Wolff took them, gravely bowing, and kissed them. Nora saw a curious, half-horrified expression pass over her father's face, and Miles smothered a laugh. She felt in that moment as though she could have killed them both, and then fled with Wolff anywhere, so long as she could get away from their stifling atmosphere of self-satisfaction and petty prejudices.
Her mother's voice was the first to break the silence.