’I think it’s better for both of us, for me to go away now.  We may say things difficult to forget.  We are both much agitated.  By to-morrow we shall be more composed; you will have thought it over, and have seen that the principal—­one great motive, I mean—­was your good.  You may tell Mrs. Hamley—­I meant to have told her myself.  I will come again to-morrow.  Good-by, Molly.’

For many minutes after he had ridden away—­long after the sound of his horse’s hoofs on the round stones of the paved lane, beyond the home-meadows, had died away—­Molly stood there, shading her eyes, and looking at the empty space of air in which his form had last appeared.  Her very breath seemed suspended; only, two or three times, after long intervals she drew a miserable sigh, which was caught up into a sob.  She turned way at last, but could not go into the house, could not tell Mrs. Hamley, could not forget how her father had looked and spoken—­and left her.

She went out by a side-door—­it was the way by which the gardeners passed when they took the manure into the garden—­and the walk to which it led was concealed from sight as much as possible by shrubs and evergreens and over-arching trees.  No one would know what became of her, and, with the ingratitude of misery, she added to herself, no one would care.  Mrs. Hamley had her own husband, her own children, her close home interests—­she was very good and kind, but there was a bitter grief in Molly’s heart, with which the stranger could not intermeddle.  She went quickly on to the bourne which she had fixed for herself—­a seat almost surrounded by the drooping leaves of a weeping-ash—­a seat on the long broad terrace walk on the other side of the wood, that overlooked the pleasant slope of the meadows beyond; the walk had probably been made to command this sunny, peaceful landscape, with trees, and a church spire, two or three red-tiled roofs of old cottages, and a purple bit of rising ground in the distance; and at some previous date, when there might have been a large family of Hamleys residing at the hall, ladies in hoops, and gentlemen in bag-wigs with swords by their sides, might have filled up the breadth of the terrace, as they sauntered, smiling, along.  But no one ever cared to saunter there now.  It was a deserted walk.  The squire or his sons might cross it in passing to a little gate that led to the meadow beyond; but no one loitered there.  Molly almost thought that no one knew of the hidden seat under the ash-tree but herself; for there were not more gardeners employed upon the grounds than were necessary to keep the kitchen-gardens and such of the ornamental part as was frequented by the family, or in sight of the house, in good order.