However, in spite
of all, his heart was as true to her as it ever had been.
Barbara saw from his anxiety how much lay behind. She replied that
she submitted to the decrees of Fate, and would welcome him in any
shape as soon as he could come. She told him of the pretty retreat
in which she had taken up her abode, pending their joint occupation
of it, and did not reveal how much she had sighed over the
information that all his good looks were gone. Still less did she
say that she felt a certain strangeness in awaiting him, the weeks
they had lived together having been so short by comparison with the
length of his absence.
Slowly drew on the time when Willowes found himself well enough to
come home. He landed at Southampton, and posted thence towards
Yewsholt. Barbara arranged to go out to meet him as far as Lornton
Inn--the spot between the Forest and the Chase at which he had
waited for night on the evening of their elopement. Thither she
drove at the appointed hour in a little pony-chaise, presented her
by her father on her birthday for her especial use in her new house;
which vehicle she sent back on arriving at the inn, the plan agreed
upon being that she should perform the return journey with her
husband in his hired coach.
There was not much accommodation for a lady at this wayside tavern;
but, as it was a fine evening in early summer, she did not mind--
walking about outside, and straining her eyes along the highway for
the expected one.
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