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Hyde has not a very good name. . . . In fact I'd rather you didn't see too much of him unless Rose or I were there: it was cheek of him to come up this afternoon when I was out, considering that he scarcely knows you: but I suppose he thinks the Wancote show gives him right of entry. That is the sort of thing a chap like Hyde does think. Now begin again and tell me what it's all about."
"Very beautiful," said Lawrence. "Are you out for a walk? I'm on my way to Wancote." Here panic fell on Isabel, the panic that lies in wait for young girls: if he were to think she thought he ought to offer to escort her! "I'm late, I must go on now. Good-bye!" Lawrence stood looking down at her, impassive, almost sombre, but for the hot glow in his eyes. His caution had gone overboard.
On the other hand young Thornton, eldest son of Squire Thornton of Thornton Beeches, in the neighbourhood of Wancote, gave out that to see Mistress Betty at her best, was to see her in the hunting-field, for she rode like a bird, and was bright and ready as a pike-staff!
She whipped up her black ponies and was gone. Lawrence was grateful to her for asking no questions, but he would rather have taken Isabel direct to Val. Romance in bud requires a delicate hand. Now Mrs. Jack Bendish had all the bourgeois virtues except modesty and discretion. The Wancote affair made a nine days' wonder in the Plain.
Ives came home full of excitement: he had heard great news in Wancote, the whole town was ringing with it. "What do you think has happened?" he cried as he came into the room. "Has John come home?" asked Betty eagerly. "No, child, and the servants say that they never expect him until he appears, he is often away like this for a few days. The news is quite otherwise Wild Jack has been taken."
Ives rode into Wancote to hear the news, and promised his daughter that he would go over to Belton, and find out from the servants whether they had had any news of their master, and when they expected him to return. Mary Jones came over to the parsonage it was an important day, for Betty was to try on her wedding-gown, finished the night before.
Isabel had gone through a great deal that day, but, with the cruel and sordid history of Hyde's married life fresh in her mind, none of the material horrors at Wancote had produced in her such a shuddering recoil as now. His wife had not been dead six months! "Captain Hyde, how dare you?" "I beg your pardon." Lawrence drew himself up, a good-humoured smile on his lips: but they were pale.
From afar, from whence nor eye nor tongue could tell, came a foul raven croaking. The village of Hendred, of which Mr. Ives was the parson, lay about two miles beyond Wancote, in a low valley nestling under a great wave of the downs.
"You can stop out all night for all I care," said Clowes. "I'm sick of the sight of you." Then Laura knew that the Golden Age was over. Isabel had refused to go to bed. She had no nerves: she saw life in its proper colours without refraction. The dreadful scene at Wancote had made its full impression on her, but she was not beset like Hyde by visions of what might have been.
"Mary, he gallops away." After the lapse of another three days, it was determined that there should be no further delay of the marriage, and one morning without pomp or parade of any kind, Mr. Ives took his bride into Wancote, and they returned home man and wife. The only wedding-guest was the parson's old friend Dr.
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