They alighted before reaching Seascale.  Barfoot discharged his debt to the driver—­who went on to bait at the hotel—­and walked with Rhoda for the last quarter of a mile.  This was his own idea; Rhoda made no remark, but approved his discretion.

‘It is six o’clock,’ said Everard, after a short silence.  ’You remember your arrangement.  At eight, down on the shore.’

‘I should be much more comfortable in the armchair with a book.’

‘Oh, you have had enough of books.  It’s time to live.’

‘It’s time to rest.’

’Are you so very tired?  Poor girl!  The day has been rather too much for you.’

Rhoda laughed.

‘I could walk back again to Wastwater if it were necessary.’

‘Of course; I knew that.  You are magnificent.  At eight o’clock then—­’

Nothing more was said on the subject.  When in sight of Rhoda’s lodgings they parted without hand-shaking.

Before eight Everard was straying about the beach, watching the sun go down in splendour.  He smiled to himself frequently.  The hour had come for his last trial of Rhoda, and he felt some confidence as to the result.  If her mettle endured his test, if she declared herself willing not only to abandon her avowed ideal of life, but to defy the world’s opinion by becoming his wife without forms of mutual bondage—­she was the woman he had imagined, and by her side he would go cheerfully on his way as a married man.  Legally married; the proposal of free union was to be a test only.  Loving her as he had never thought to love, there still remained with him so much of the temper in which he first wooed her that he could be satisfied with nothing short of unconditional surrender.  Delighting in her independence of mind, he still desired to see her in complete subjugation to him, to inspire her with unreflecting passion.  Tame consent to matrimony was an everyday experience.  Agnes Brissenden, he felt sure, would marry him whenever he chose to ask her—­and would make one of the best wives conceivable.  But of Rhoda Nunn he expected and demanded more than this.  She must rise far above the level of ordinary intelligent women.  She must manifest an absolute confidence in him—­that was the true significance of his present motives.  The censures and suspicions which she had not scrupled to confess in plain words must linger in no corner of her mind.

His heart throbbed with impatience for her coming.  Come she would; it was not in Rhoda’s nature to play tricks; if she had not meant to meet him she would have said so resolutely, as last night.

At a few minutes past the hour he looked landward, and saw her figure against the golden sky.  She came down from the sandbank very slowly, with careless, loitering steps.  He moved but a little way to meet her, and then stood still.  He had done his part; it was now hers to forego female privileges, to obey the constraint of love.  The western afterglow touched her features, heightening the beauty Everard had learnt to see in them.  Still she loitered, stooping to pick up a piece of seaweed; but still he kept his place, motionless, and she came nearer.