ly through the door:
Not well enough to come? No fun without her! But she mustn't on any
account strain herself! No, no!

Her heart smote her at that. He was always so good to her.

At last, watching from the corridor, she saw them sally forth down the
drive--the Colonel a little in advance, carrying his wife's evening
shoes. How nice he looked--with his brown face, and his grey moustache;
so upright, and concerned with what he had in hand!

There was no languor in her now. She had dressed in white, and now she
took a blue silk cloak with a hood, and caught up the flower that had so
miraculously survived last night's wearing and pinned it at her breast.
Then making sure no servant was about, she slipped downstairs and out.
It was just eight, and the sun still glistened on the dove-cot. She
kept away from that lest the birds should come fluttering about her,
and betray her by cooing. When she had nearly reached the tow-path, she
stopped affrighted. Surely something had moved, something heavy, with
a sound of broken branches. Was it the memory of last night come on her
again; or, indeed, someone there? She walked back a few steps. Foolish
alarm! In the meadow beyond a cow was brushing against the hedge. And,
stealing along the grass, out on to the tow-path, she went swiftly
towards the poplar.

XIX

A hundred times in these days of her absence Lennan had been on the
point of going down, against her orders, just to pass the house, just
to feel himself within reach, to catch a glimpse of her, perhaps, from
afar. If his body haunted London, his spirit had passed down on to
that river where he had drifted once already, reconnoitring. A hundred
times--by day in fancy, and by night in dreams--pulling himself along by
the boughs, he stole down that dim backwater, till the dark yews and the
white dove-cot came into view.

For he thought now only of fulfilment. She was wasting cruelly away! Why
should he leave her where she was? Leave her to profane herself and all
womanhood in the arms of a man she hated?

And on that day of mid-June, when he received her telegram, it was as if
he had been handed the key of Paradise.

Would she--could she mean to come away with him that very night? He
would prepare for that at all events. He had so often in mind faced this
crisis in his affairs, that now it only meant translating into action
what had been carefully thought out. He packed, supplied himself
liberally with money, and w