Can we expect it to be a success?
Everest knew that he loved Regina now, that he passionately longed for and desired her; and the feeling seemed so strong, so deeply rooted that it might well last for the traditional "ever." ... But experience told him that, of the many, many passions and loves he had felt before, all had varied, and shifted, and changed, and in due course, from one ailment or another, languished, sickened and died.
And on their death he had been free. But in this case he was considering, when they died, he would be enveloped, shackled in the chains of marriage! He thought of all his married friends.... There was not one who did not envy him his freedom, and yet most of them must have felt at some time that same stress of emotion for their wives as he felt for Regina now. He sprang to his feet suddenly.
"No! No! I will not be so foolish as to be led into it! In town, in a few weeks, I may have forgotten her altogether."
He recommenced collecting his letters and papers with feverish vigour. He knew he must go, and he would do so the day after to-morrow. His resolve was quite genuine, and he looked out the up-trains himself in Miss Marlow's ready laid hand-book, and packed his writing-case and small trunks.
But Nature, who doesn't mind in the least about marriage, but is very keen on carrying out those matters which really concern her, is not to be put off by a human being just packing his suit-case.
The following afternoon, when Everest started from the Rectory for his walk seawards, as he left the grounds, he met the curate coming up from the village, and as he greeted him the young man joined him.
"I'm going to visit a parishioner who lives in a little cottage on the beach. Are you going that way? If so, we might walk down together."
Everest assented pleasantly, though on that particular day no man's company was particularly welcome to him. His whole excitable nature was now strung up to one painful and horrible duty: the wrenching himself away from a woman that he loved with certainly the best and highest passion he had ever felt in his life. His blood seemed all on fire, and running the wrong way in his veins; his teeth seemed on edge; all his nerves shaken. But he showed none of this: he looked to the curate singularly calm, quiet and self-possessed.