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A nearer view showed her to be, as he had expected, Milly Birch, Paula's maid, who had friends living in Markton, whom she was in the habit of visiting almost every evening during the three hours of leisure which intervened between Paula's retirement from the dressing-room and return thither at ten o'clock.
He countermanded the order to put his luggage on board, watched the steamer out of the harbour, and went to bed. He might as well have gone to battle, for any rest that he got. On rising the next morning he felt rather blank, though none the less convinced that a matter required investigation. He left Budmouth by a morning train, and about eleven o'clock found himself in Markton.
Your brother's solicitor was here yesterday; but he returned to Markton for the night. We miss Mr. Power so much it is so unfortunate that he should have been obliged to go abroad, and leave us unprotected women with so much responsibility. 'Yes, I know, said Charlotte quickly, having a shy distaste for the details of what troubled her so much in the gross. 'Paula has inquired for you.
When a few more words had passed she turned to Miss De Stancy and spoke of some domestic matter, upon which Somerset withdrew, Paula accompanying his exit with a remark that she hoped to see him again a little later in the day. Somerset retired to the chambers of antique lumber, keeping an eye upon the windows to see if she re-entered the carriage and resumed her journey to Markton.
The latter went off in one direction and Somerset in the other, pursuing his pensive way towards Markton with thoughts not difficult to divine. From one point in her nature he went to another, till he again recurred to her romantic interest in the De Stancy family. To wish she was one of them: how very inconsistent of her. That she really did wish it was unquestionable.
The neighbouring rector could eclipse Woodwell's scholarship, and the freethinker at the corner shop in Markton could demolish his logic; but the Baptist could do in five minutes what neither of these had done in a lifetime; he could move some of the hardest of men to tears. Thus it happened that, when the sermon was fairly under way, Havill began to feel himself in a trying position.
Reaching the margin of the churchyard he looked over the wall, his presence being masked by bushes and a group of idlers from Markton who stood in front. Soon a funeral procession of simple almost meagre and threadbare character arrived, but Power did not join the people who followed the deceased into the church.
It was either Miss De Stancy or Paula; one of them had gone there alone for his handkerchief and had remained awhile, pondering on his escape. But which? 'If I were not a faint-heart I should run all risk and wave my hat or kiss my hand to her, whoever she is, he thought. But he did not do either. So he lingered about silently in the shades, and then thought of strolling to his rooms at Markton.
What would he have given to impersonate her lover in the piece! But neither Paula nor any one else had asked him. The eventful evening came. Somerset had been engaged during the day with the different people by whom the works were to be carried out and in the evening went to his rooms at the Lord-Quantock-Arms, Markton, where he dined.
Since that illness he has been happy, as you see him: no pride, quite calm and mild; at new moon quite childish. 'Tis that makes him able to live there; before he was so ill he couldn't bear a zight of the place, but since then he is happy nowhere else, and never leaves the parish further than to drive once a week to Markton.
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