Mrs. Pendyce had read the letter now three times, and instinctively had put it in her bosom.  It was not hers, but Horace must know it by heart, and in his anger he might tear it up.  That letter, for which they had waited so long; told her nothing; she had known all there was to tell.  Her hand had fallen from Mr. Pendyce’s shoulder, and she did not put it back, but ran her fingers through and through each other, while the sunlight, traversing the narrow windows, caressed her from her hair down to her knees.  Here and there that stream of sunlight formed little pools in her eyes, giving them a touching, anxious brightness; in a curious heart-shaped locket of carved steel, worn by her mother and her grandmother before her, containing now, not locks of their son’s hair, but a curl of George’s; in her diamond rings, and a bracelet of amethyst and pearl which she wore for the love of pretty things.  And the warm sunlight disengaged from her a scent of lavender.  Through the library door a scratching noise told that the dear dogs knew she was not in her bedroom.  Mr. Pendyce, too, caught that scent of lavender, and in some vague way it augmented his discomfort.  Her silence, too, distressed him.  It did not occur to him that his silence was distressing her.  He put down his pen.

“I can’t write with you standing there, Margery!”

Mrs. Pendyce moved out of the sunlight.

“George says he is taking steps.  What does that mean, Horace?”

This question, focusing his doubts, broke down the Squire’s dumbness.

“I won’t be treated like this!” he said.  “I’ll go up and see him myself!”

He went by the 10.20, saying that he would be down again by the 5.55

Soon after seven the same evening a dogcart driven by a young groom and drawn by a raking chestnut mare with a blaze face, swung into the railway-station at Worsted Skeynes, and drew up before the booking-office.  Mr. Pendyce’s brougham, behind a brown horse, coming a little later, was obliged to range itself behind.  A minute before the train’s arrival a wagonette and a pair of bays, belonging to Lord Quarryman, wheeled in, and, filing past the other two, took up its place in front.  Outside this little row of vehicles the station fly and two farmers’ gigs presented their backs to the station buildings.  And in this arrangement there was something harmonious and fitting, as though Providence itself had guided them all and assigned to each its place.  And Providence had only made one error—­that of placing Captain Bellew’s dogcart precisely opposite the booking-office, instead of Lord Quarryman’s wagonette, with Mr. Pendyce’s brougham next.

Mr. Pendyce came out first; he stared angrily at the dogcart, and moved to his own carriage.  Lord Quarryman came out second.  His massive sun-burned head—­the back of which, sparsely adorned by hairs, ran perfectly straight into his neck—­was crowned by a grey top-hat.  The skirts of his grey coat were square-shaped, and so were the toes of his boots.