5.  HALF-PAST TWO TO FIVE O’CLOCK P.M.

Owen accompanied the newly-married couple to the railway-station, and in his anxiety to see the last of his sister, left the brougham and stood upon his crutches whilst the train was starting.

When the husband and wife were about to enter the railway-carriage they saw one of the porters looking frequently and furtively at them.  He was pale, and apparently very ill.

‘Look at that poor sick man,’ said Cytherea compassionately, ’surely he ought not to be here.’

‘He’s been very queer to-day, madam, very queer,’ another porter answered.  ‘He do hardly hear when he’s spoken to, and d’ seem giddy, or as if something was on his mind.  He’s been like it for this month past, but nothing so bad as he is to-day.’

‘Poor thing.’

She could not resist an innate desire to do some just thing on this most deceitful and wretched day of her life.  Going up to him she gave him money, and told him to send to the old manor-house for wine or whatever he wanted.

The train moved off as the trembling man was murmuring his incoherent thanks.  Owen waved his hand; Cytherea smiled back to him as if it were unknown to her that she wept all the while.

Owen was driven back to the Old House.  But he could not rest in the lonely place.  His conscience began to reproach him for having forced on the marriage of his sister with a little too much peremptoriness.  Taking up his crutches he went out of doors and wandered about the muddy roads with no object in view save that of getting rid of time.

The clouds which had hung so low and densely during the day cleared from the west just now as the sun was setting, calling forth a weakly twitter from a few small birds.  Owen crawled down the path to the waterfall, and lingered thereabout till the solitude of the place oppressed him, when he turned back and into the road to the village.  He was sad; he said to himself—­

’If there is ever any meaning in those heavy feelings which are called presentiments—­and I don’t believe there is—­there will be in mine to-day. . . .  Poor little Cytherea!’

At that moment the last low rays of the sun touched the head and shoulders of a man who was approaching, and showed him up to Owen’s view.  It was old Mr. Springrove.  They had grown familiar with each other by reason of Owen’s visits to Knapwater during the past year.  The farmer inquired how Owen’s foot was progressing, and was glad to see him so nimble again.

‘How is your son?’ said Owen mechanically.

‘He is at home, sitting by the fire,’ said the farmer, in a sad voice.  ’This morning he slipped indoors from God knows where, and there he sits and mopes, and thinks, and thinks, and presses his head so hard, that I can’t help feeling for him.’

‘Is he married?’ said Owen.  Cytherea had feared to tell him of the interview in the garden.