And he sprang up and marched out of the room like an angry
man.
Miss Vanderpoel did not go to Mrs. Welden's cottage at once, but walked
past its door down the lane, where there were no more cottages, but only
hedges and fields on either side of her. "Not well enough to make his
rounds" might mean much or little. It might mean a temporary breakdown
from overfatigue or a sickening for deadly illness. She looked at a
group of cropping sheep in a field and at a flock of rooks which had
just alighted near it with cawing and flapping of wings. She kept her
eyes on them merely to steady herself. The thoughts she had brought out
with her had grown heavier and were horribly difficult to control. One
must not allow one's self to believe the worst will come--one must not
allow it.
She always held this rule before herself, and now she was not holding
it steadily. There was nothing to do. She could write a mere note of
inquiry to Mr. Penzance, but that was all. She could only walk up and
down the lanes and think--whether he lay dying or not. She could do
nothing, even if a day came when she knew that a pit had been dug in the
clay and he had been lowered into it with creaking ropes, and the clods
shovelled back upon him where he lay still--never having told her that
he was glad that her being had turned to him and her heart cried aloud
his name.
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