Throughout the whole day Honoria had been a prey to gloomy forebodings. The estrangement between herself and her husband was so unexpected, so inexplicable, that she was powerless to struggle against the sense of misery and bewilderment which it had occasioned in her mind.
Again and again she asked herself what had she done to offend him; again and again she pondered over the smallest and most insignificant actions—the lightest words—of the past few weeks, in order to discover some clue to the mystery of Sir Oswald's altered conduct.
But the past afforded her no such clue. She had said nothing, she had done nothing, which could offend the most sensitive of men.
Then a new and terrible light began to dawn upon her. She remembered her wretched extraction—the pitiable condition in which the baronet had discovered her, and she began to think that he repented of his marriage. "He regrets his folly, and I am hateful in his eyes," thought Honoria, "for he remembers my degraded position—the mystery of my past life. He has heard sneering words and cruel innuendoes fall from the lips of his fashionable friends, perhaps; and he is ashamed of his marriage. He little knows how gladly I would release him from the tie that binds us—if, indeed, it has grown hateful to him." Thus musing and wandering alone, in one of the forest pathways—for she had outstripped her guests, and sought a little relief for her overwrought spirits, constrained to the courtesies of her position for the moment—she scarcely knew whither, she came presently upon a group of grooms, who were lounging before a rough canvas tent, which had been erected for the accommodation of the horses.
"Is 'Orestes' in that tent, Plummer?" she asked of the old groom who generally attended her in her rides and drives.
"No, my lady, Sir Oswald had him saddled a quarter of an hour ago, and rode him away."
"Sir Oswald has gone away!"
"Yes, my lady. He got a message, I think, while he was sitting at dinner, and he rode off as fast as he could go, across th' moor—it's the nighest way to the castle, you know, my lady; though it ain't the pleasantest."
Honoria grew very uneasy. What was the meaning of this sudden departure?
"Do you know who brought the message from Raynham?" she asked the groom.