The train had quitted London.  Now for the country, now for free breathing!  She who two days back had come from Alps, delighted in the look on flat green fields.  It was under the hallucination of her saying in flight adieu to them, and to England; and, that somewhere hidden, to be found in Asia, Africa, America, was the man whose ideal of life was higher than enjoyment.  His caged brute of a temper offered opportunities for delicious petting; the sweetest a woman can bestow:  it lifts her out of timidity into an adoration still palpitatingly fearful.  Ah, but familiarity, knowledge, confirmed assurance of his character, lift her to another stage, above the pleasures.  May she not prove to him how really matched with him she is, to disdain the pleasures, cheerfully accept the burdens, meet death, if need be; readily face it as the quietly grey to-morrow:  at least, show herself to her hero for a woman—­the incredible being to most men—­who treads the terrors as well as the pleasures of humanity beneath her feet, and may therefore have some pride in her stature.  Ay, but only to feel the pride of standing not so shamefully below his level beside him.

Woods were flying past the carriage-windows.  Her solitary companion was of the class of the admiring gentlemen.  Presently he spoke.  She answered.  He spoke again.  Her mouth smiled, and her accompanying look of abstract benevolence arrested the tentative allurement to conversation.

New ideas were set revolving in her.  Dartrey and Victor grew to a likeness; they became hazily one man, and the mingled phantom complimented her on her preserving a good share of the beauty of her youth.  The face perhaps:  the figure rather too well suits the years! she replied.  To reassure her, this Dartrey-Victor drew her close and kissed her; and she was confused and passed into the breast of Mrs. Burman expecting an operation at the hands of the surgeons.  The train had stopped.  ‘Penhurst?’ she said.

‘Penhurst is the next station,’ said the gentleman.  Here was a theme for him!  The stately mansion, the noble grounds, and Sidney!  He discoursed of them.

The handsome lady appeared interested.  She was interested also by his description of a neighbouring village, likely one hundred years hence to be a place of pilgrimage for Americans and for Australians.  Age, he said, improves true beauty; and his eyelids indicated a levelling to perform the soft intentness.  Mechanically, a ball rose in her throat; the remark was illuminated by a saying of Colney’s, with regard to his countrymen at the play of courtship.  No laughter came.  The gentleman talked on.

All fancies and internal communications left her.  Slowness of motion brought her to the plain piece of work she had to do, on a colourless earth, that seemed foggy; but one could see one’s way.  Resolution is a form of light, our native light in this dubious world.

Dudley Sowerby opened her carriage-door.  They greeted.