She
could hardly suppose him, whatever his infatuation, to have
prolonged to a later hour than ten an ostensibly professional call
on Mrs. Charmond at Middleton; and he could have ridden home in
two hours and a half. What, then, had become of him? That he had
been out the greater part of the two preceding nights added to her
uneasiness.
She dressed herself, descended, and went out, the weird twilight
of advancing day chilling the rays from the lanterns, and making
the men's faces wan. As soon as Melbury saw her he came round,
showing his alarm.
"Edgar is not come," she said. "And I have reason to know that
he's not attending anybody. He has had no rest for two nights
before this. I was going to the top of the hill to look for him."
"I'll come with you," said Melbury.
She begged him not to hinder himself; but he insisted, for he saw
a peculiar and rigid gloom in her face over and above her
uneasiness, and did not like the look of it. Telling the men he
would be with them again soon, he walked beside her into the
turnpike-road, and partly up the hill whence she had watched
Fitzpiers the night before across the Great White Hart or
Blackmoor Valley.
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