"It is too late for you to go out by yourself," Mrs. John said. "I do not like it. You girls are so independent. I never went beyond the garden by myself at your age."
"I am only going to the Common," Hester said, with a quiver in her voice. She kissed her mother very tenderly. She was not in the habit of bestowing caresses, so that this a little startled Mrs. John; but she returned it warmly, and bade her child take a shawl.
Did Hester think she might yet be carried away by the flood of the other's will, against her own, that she took her leave so solemnly? It was rather a sort of imaginative reflection of what she might have been doing if—— She had gone but a little way when she met Captain Morgan.
"Why did not you tell me you were going out?" he said. "I have tired myself now; I can't go with you. I have been inquiring about the midnight train for Emma, who did not get off this morning after all."
"Is she going by the midnight train?" Hester asked, with a sense of inconvenience in it that she could hardly explain.
"Yes, if it is possible to get her off," said the captain; "but, my dear, it is too late for you to walk alone."
"No, oh no. It is only for this once," Hester cried, with involuntary passion unawares.
"My dear child!" said the old man. He was disturbed by her looks. "I will go in and get an overcoat, and join you directly, Hester; for though I am tired I would rather be over-tired than that you should walk alone."
The only way that Hester could defend herself was to hurry away out of sight before he came out again. She had a dark dress, a veil over her face. Her springy step indeed was not easy to be mistaken, nor the outline of her alert and vigorous figure, which was so much unlike loitering. She got away into the fields by a lonely path, where she could be safe she thought till the time of her appointment came. What was to happen at that appointment she could not tell. Excitement was so high in her veins that she had no time to ask herself what she would answer him if he kept to his intention, or what she should do. Was it on the cards still that she might follow him to the end of the world?
Edward had arrived late, only in time for dinner. He got Hester's note and read it with an impatient exclamation.