"
"What difference can it make, if she's only the tree your rainbow
falls on?"
"Ha! ha! True."
"You have no wife, sir?"
"I have no wife, and no idea of one. I hope to do better things
than marry and settle in Hintock. Not but that it is well for a
medical man to be married, and sometimes, begad, 'twould be
pleasant enough in this place, with the wind roaring round the
house, and the rain and the boughs beating against it. I hear
that you lost your life-holds by the death of South?"
"I did. I lost in more ways than one."
They had reached the top of Hintock Lane or Street, if it could be
called such where three-quarters of the road-side consisted of
copse and orchard. One of the first houses to be passed was
Melbury's. A light was shining from a bedroom window facing
lengthwise of the lane. Winterborne glanced at it, and saw what
was coming. He had withheld an answer to the doctor's inquiry to
hinder his knowledge of Grace; but, as he thought to himself, "who
hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in
a garment?" he could not hinder what was doomed to arrive, and
might just as well have been outspoken.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246