The wind which had been flowing in at the north window changed to the
south-west.
The difficulties of his living with Fanny increased the next morning:
it was one of the week-days when he didn't go into town after
breakfast. He was dressed for riding, his horse was at the door, when,
without previous announcement and unprepared, she decided to go with
him. He could hear her hurrying upstairs--it upset her unreasonably to
rush--and suddenly, with the audible fall of a boot on the floor, there
was the unmistakable sound of sobbing.
Lee went up, half impatient and half comprehending, and found her
seated on a bed, leaning her head in an arm on the foot-board. "Don't
wait for me," she cried in a smothered voice; "it makes you so nervous.
Just go; it doesn't matter what I do. You've--you've shown me that. Oh,
dear, I am so miserable. Everything was right and so happy, and now
it's all wrong."
"Nonsense," he replied tonically; "it will take Christopher a few
minutes to get your saddle on. I'll be outside." Mounted and waiting
for her, his horse stepping contrarily over the grass beyond the drive,
he didn't care whether she came or stayed. When she appeared her eyes,
prominent now rather than striking, were reddened, and the hastily
applied paint and powder were unbecomingly streaked with some late
irrepressible tears.
* * * * *
When they had returned, and through lunch and after, a not unfamiliar
stubborn silence settled over Fanny.
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