But how if Everard resisted such tendencies?  Was he in truth capable of respecting her individuality?  Or would his strong instinct of lordship urge him to direct his wife as a dependent, to impose upon her his own view of things?  She doubted whether he had much genuine sympathy with woman’s emancipation as she understood it.  Yet in no particular had her convictions changed; nor would they change.  She herself was no longer one of the ‘odd women’; fortune had—­or seemed to have—­ been kind to her; none the less her sense of a mission remained.  No longer an example of perfect female independence, and unable therefore to use the same language as before, she might illustrate woman’s claim of equality in marriage.—­If her experience proved no obstacle.

* * *

Next morning, as had been agreed, they met at some distance from Seascale, and spent two or three hours together.  There was little danger in observation unless by a casual peasant; for the most part their privacy could not have been more secure in a locked chamber.  Lest curiosity should be excited by his making inquiries at the hotel, Barfoot proposed to walk over to Gosforth, the nearest town, this afternoon, and learn where the registrar for the locality of Seascale might be found.  By neither was allusion made to their difference of last evening, but Rhoda distressed herself by imagining a diminished fervour in her companion; he seemed unusually silent and meditative, and was content to hold her hand now and then.

‘Shall you stay here all the week?’ she inquired.

‘If you wish me to.’

‘You will find it wearisome.’

’Impossible, with you here.  But if I run up to London for a day or two it might be better.  There are preparations.  We shall go first of all to my rooms—­’

‘I would rather not have stayed in London.’

‘I thought you might wish to make purchases.’

’Let us go to some other town, and spend a few days there before leaving England.’

‘Very well.  Manchester or Birmingham.’

‘You speak rather impatiently,’ said Rhoda, looking at him with an uneasy smile.  ‘Let it be London if you prefer—­’

’On no account.  It’s all indifferent to me so long as we get safely away together.  Every man is impatient of these preliminaries.  Yes, in that case I must of course go up to London.  To-morrow, and back on Saturday?’

A shower of rain caused them some discomfort.  Through the afternoon it still rained at intervals whilst Barfoot was discharging his business at Gosforth.  He was to see Rhoda again at eight o’clock, and as the time threatened to hang heavily on his hands he returned by a long detour, reaching the Seascale hotel about half-past six.  No sooner had he entered than there was delivered to him a letter, brought by messenger an hour or two ago.  It surprised him to recognize Rhoda’s writing on the envelope, which seemed to contain at least two sheets of notepaper.  What now?  Some whimsey?  Agitated and annoyed by the anticipation of trouble, he went apart and broke the letter open.