"Plenty."
"What do you call plenty?"
"Dad gave me fifteen pounds when I left home, and I've spent less than five."
"Well, then, sweetheart, it is good-by till this evening."
"Oh, Bob darling, I shall pray that it may be so!"
Storr received his orders without lifting an eyelid, which was highly creditable to him, having regard to the peculiar conditions under which he had met his employer. Of course, he was ignorant of the state of affairs at the Grange. He imagined that Mr. Armathwaite was escorting a young lady over the moor to Leyburn, which was a funny way to reach York, when Nuttonby lay on a better road, which was also the more direct route. But there was nothing unusual in the fact that he should be taking Miss Ogilvey to meet her mother, while the car would make light of the three journeys.
"You'd better have this, sir, and see if it's right," he said, giving Armathwaite a note. A glance showed that it dealt with terms for the hire of the car.
"Tell your people it is quite satisfactory," said Armathwaite, and, after a farewell pressure of Meg's hand, and a look from the brown eyes which remained with him like a blessing, the car started. He watched until it had vanished over a long undulation of the road, and saw the last flutter of Meg's handkerchief ere she crossed the sky-line. Then he mounted the bicycle, and rode swiftly back to the tiny hamlet in which, during two short days, he had passed through so many and so much varied experiences.
Looking down from the crest of the hill at the sunlit panorama of farm and field, woodland and furze-grown common, with Elmdale's cluster of homesteads nestling close beneath the moor, and the spire of Bellerby Church (near which lay the mortal remains of "Stephen Garth") rising above a cluster of elms in the middle distance, it seemed to be a fantastic and unreal notion that so many of life's evils, so much of its beauty and happiness, could have found full scope for their expression in that tiny and remote place.
As the hill was too dangerous in parts to ride, he dismounted twice. He was about to coast down the last straight slope to the house when a thought struck him with such blinding force that he nearly lost control of the bicycle. Fool that he was, his first care should have been to tell Marguérite that his name was not Armathwaite; that he had adopted an incognito simply to avoid the prying eyes and inquisitive tongues of those with whom he might be brought in contact; that, in marrying him, she was stepping forth from the seclusion of a student's retreat into the full glare of public life. Oh, the deuce take all complications and worries! He had won Marguérite by extraordinary means—he must do his wooing in more orthodox manner, and in his true colors.