"
"How am I to know?"
"My man shall tell your maid. But everybody will soon know all
about it. It will alter everything."
"I think I shall go mad."
"In white satin?"
"No;--in my habit and hat. It will be the hardest thing, after all!
I ought to have insisted on going to Holcombe Cross on Friday. The
sun is shining now. Surely it cannot freeze."
"It will be uncommonly ill-bred if it does."
But, after all, the hunting was not the main point. The hunting had
been only intended as an opportunity; and if that were to be
lost,--in which case Lord Rufford would no doubt at once leave
Mistletoe,--there was the more need for using the present hour, the
more for using even the present minute. Though she had said that
the sun was shining, it was the setting sun, and in another half
hour the gloom of the evening would be there. Even Lord Rufford
would not consent to walk about with her in the dark. "Oh, Lord
Rufford," she said, "I did so look forward to your giving me
another lead." Then she put her hand upon his arm and left it
there.
"It would have been nice," said he, drawing her hand a little on,
and remembering as he did so his own picture of himself on the
cliff with his sister holding his coat-tails.
"If you could possibly know," she said, "the condition I am in."
"What condition?"
"I know that I can trust you.
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