‘I had rather you came with us,’ she said, with an appealing look.
‘As you like, dear. Lewis, will you ride Tarpan?’
Sir Lewis looked at Viola and then at his boots. It was an honour to ride Tarpan, but hardly a pleasant thing to ride him without straps; and then Sir Lewis would have liked that homeward drive, with Viola for his vis-à-vis.
‘By all means, if Mrs. Penwyn would rather you went back in the carriage,’ he said good-naturedly, but with a look at Viola which meant ‘You know what a sacrifice I am making.’
That drive home was a very silent one. Viola was suffering from reaction after excitement, and leaned back with a listless air. Madge looked straight before her, with grave fixed eyes, gazing into space. And still there was not a cloud in the blue bright sky, and the reapers standing amongst the tawny corn turned their swart faces towards the Squire’s carriage, and pulled their moistened forelocks, and thought what a fine thing it was for the gentry to be driving swiftly through the clear warm air, lolling back upon soft cushions, and with no more exertion than was involved in holding a silk umbrella.
‘But how white Madam Penwyn looks!’ said one of the men, a native of the place, to his mate. ‘She doant look as if the good things of this life agreed with her. She looks paler and more tired like than you nor me.’
CHAPTER XVI
‘THIS IS MORE STRANGE THAN SUCH A MURDER IS.’
They were in Madge’s dressing-room, that spacious, many-windowed chamber, with its closed venetians, which was cool and shadowy even on a blazing August day like this. They were alone together, husband and wife, face to face, two white faces turned towards each other, blanched by passions stronger and deeper than it is man’s common lot to suffer.
They had come here straight from the carriage that brought them back to the Manor House, and they were alone for the first moment since Madge had heard Rebecca Mason’s petition.