pictures that
Nora's flying thoughts conjured up for her.

The dead level of her life at Tunbridge Wells had been a curious
preparation for the violent changes of the last few months. How often
when walking in the old-world garden with Miss Wickham she had had the
sensation of stifling, oppressed by those vine-covered walls, and
inwardly had likened herself to a prisoner. There were no walls now to
confine her. Clear away to the sunset it was open. And yet she was more
of a prisoner than she had ever been. And now she wore a fetter, albeit
of gold, on her hand.

It had been her habit to think of herself with pity as friendless in
those days; forgetful of the good doctor and his wife, Agnes Pringle and
even Mr. Wynne, not to speak of her humbler friends, the gardener's wife
and children, and the good Kate. Well, she was being punished for it
now. It would be hard, indeed, to imagine a more friendless condition
than hers. Rushing onward, farther and farther into the wilderness to
make for herself a home miles from any human habitation; no woman, in
all probability, to turn to in case of need. And, crowning loneliness,
having ever at her side a man with whom she had been on terms of open
enmity up to a few short hours before!

From time to time she stole furtive glances at him as he sat at her
side; and once, when he had put his head back against the seat and
pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his eyes and was seemingly asleep, she
turned her head and gave him a long appraising look.

How big and strong and self-reliant he was. He was just the type of man
who would go out into the wilderness and conquer it. And, although she
had scoffed at his statement when he made it, she knew that he had
brains. Yes, although his lack of education and refinement must often
touch her on the raw, he was a man whom any woman could respect in her
heart.

And when they clashed, as clash they must until she had tamed him a
little, she would need every weapon in her woman's arsenal to save her
from utter route; she realized that. But then, these big, rough men were
always the first to respond to any appeal to their natural chivalry. If
she found herself being worsted, there was always that to fall back
upon.

If from some other world Miss Wickham could see her, how she must be
smiling! Nora, herself, smiled at the thought. And at the thought of
Agnes Pringle's outraged astonishment if she were to meet her husband
now, before she had to