But when he was on the farther bank of the Axe, he bent his steps first of all to the Undercliff, to the elder-bushes, where he had retained Winefred from falling over the precipice, to the gate where she had kept him at a distance with a twig of thorns, to the slit in the barn wall through which he had watched her at the dance; and only finally did he enter the farmhouse and present himself before Mrs. Jose.
She had much to relate about Bath, and its beauties, about the splendours of the Tomkin-Jones mansion, about the cordiality of her reception, and about the prospects that opened before Winefred.
Jack listened in silence. It pleased him to hear about Winefred, yet it was a pleasure fraught with pain, for it riveted in him the conviction that he and she were parted not so much by space as by the wider separation of social standing.
And yet, what did he want with her?
Nothing could come of his fancy, even were Winefred to lay aside her dislike for him. But he knew, too surely, that she hated him. When they had met, they were like two goats on a plank, clashing horns.
A couple of weeks later Captain Ford said to Jack, 'My lad, I have an errand for you. I can't go myself. You must do the job for me. Borrow as many eyes as there are in a peacock's tail, and use every one. I want you to go to Bath. They tell me that there they saw the stone. It is harder than ours, but it is done, I believe, by water power. Make pencil notes of all particulars, and if the outlay be not too great, as it need not be if you bring every contrivance away with you in your head or on paper, and we can rig up the concern with our own workmen, we shall save a lot of cost and time.'
Jack flushed with delight, but that delight soon gave way to anxiety. He might, indeed, see Winefred, but only to discover how much further she was removed from him at Bath than she had been at Bindon. Then only the Axe had flowed between, and a current of prejudice. He might find that a mightier stream was parting them, and one that was to him impossible to cross.
'I wish first to go to Bindon,' said Jack. 'Mrs. Jose may have some message to her cousins at Bath.'
'Right,' said Captain Ford. 'I suppose you cannot see Mrs. Marley, and learn if she has anything for her child?'