Chapter 9

He hastened down towards the stables, and she went on as directed.
It seemed as if he must have put in the horse himself, so quickly did
he reappear with the phaeton on the open road. Margery silently took
her seat, and the Baron seemed cut to the quick with self-reproach as
he noticed the listless indifference with which she acted. There was
no doubt that in her heart she had preferred obeying the apparently
important mandate that morning to becoming Jim's wife; but there was
no less doubt that had the Baron left her alone she would quietly
have gone to the altar.

He drove along furiously, in a cloud of dust. There was much to
contemplate in that peaceful Sunday morning--the windless trees and
fields, the shaking sunlight, the pause in human stir. Yet neither
of them heeded, and thus they drew near to the dairy. His first
expressed intention had been to go indoors with her, but this he
abandoned as impolitic in the highest degree.

'You may be soon enough,' he said, springing down, and helping her to
follow. 'Tell the truth: say you were sent for to receive a wedding
present--that it was a mistake on my part--a mistake on yours; and I
think they'll forgive . . . And, Margery, my last request to you is
this: that if I send for you again, you do not come. Promise
solemnly, my dear girl, that any such request shall be unheeded.'

Her lips moved, but the promise was not articulated. 'O, sir, I
cannot promise it!' she said at last.

'But you must; your salvation may depend on it!' he insisted almost
sternly. 'You don't know what I am.'

'Then, sir, I promise,' she replied. 'Now leave me to myself,
please, and I'll go indoors and manage matters.'

He turned the horse and drove away, but only for a little distance.
Out of sight he pulled rein suddenly. 'Only to go back and propose
it to her, and she'd come!' he murmured.

He stood up in the phaeton, and by this means he could see over the
hedge. Margery still sat listlessly in the same place; there was not
a lovelier flower in the field. 'No,' he said; 'no, no--never!' He
reseated himself, and the wheels sped lightly back over the soft dust
to Mount Lodge.

Meanwhile Margery had not moved. If the Baron could dissimulate on
the side of severity she could dissimulate on the side of calm. He
did not know what had been veiled by the quiet promise to manage
matters indoors. Rising at length she first turned away from the
house; and, by-and-by, having apparently forgotten till then that she
carried it in her hand, she opened the case, and looked at the
locket. This seemed to give her courage. She turned, set her face
towards the dairy in good earnest, and though her heart faltered when
the gates came in sight, she kept on