Tom was sitting at the table before the hall window, busy making flies for his trout fishing. He was so intent on his work that he did not look up.
“She gets bad headaches. I should not be anxious. She always likes to be left alone.”
Rhoda did not answer this. She went into the dining-room, where tea was laid ready, and sat down in the broad window-seat with some needlework.
If Tom had come in then, she would have been very cold to him. Her pride was up in arms. But he did not come near her; and for a miserable half hour Rhoda sat there alone, feeling as if all life’s music had suddenly stopped, and winter had taken the place of spring.
Wilmot came in at last to urge her to have some tea. “Miss Rosie may be stopping to tea at the Rectory. It isn’t any good for you and Mr. Tom to wait any longer.”
Rhoda looked at the clock in some alarm. She had not been conscious of the lapse of time. “I don’t think Miss Rosie meant to stop anywhere, Wilmot. But they ought to be home. I hope nothing has happened.”
At that moment Tom entered the room. “It is getting very late,” he said to Rhoda. “How long did Jones mean to take to put that shoe right? Not very long, surely.”
“Miss Merivale thought they would be at home by six o’clock,” Rhoda answered.
“And it is seven now,” Tom said, glancing at the clock. “It will be dark in half an hour. They were coming by the high road all the way, didn’t you say?”
“Yes; Miss Smythe did not want to go up the lane. But the high road is not very much longer, is it, Mr. Merivale?”