Meanwhile Margery had not moved. If the Baron could dissimulate on
the side of severity she could dissimulate on the side of calm. He
did not know what had been veiled by the quiet promise to manage
matters indoors. Rising at length she first turned away from the
house; and, by-and-by, having apparently forgotten till then that she
carried it in her hand, she opened the case, and looked at the
locket. This seemed to give her courage. She turned, set her face
towards the dairy in good earnest, and though her heart faltered when
the gates came in sight, she kept on and drew near the door.
On the threshold she stood listening. The house was silent.
Decorations were visible in the passage, and also the carefully swept
and sanded path to the gate, which she was to have trodden as a
bride; but the sparrows hopped over it as if it were abandoned; and
all appeared to have been checked at its climacteric, like a clock
stopped on the strike. Till this moment of confronting the suspended
animation of the scene she had not realized the full shock of the
convulsion which her disappearance must have caused. It is quite
certain--apart from her own repeated assurances to that effect in
later years--that in hastening off that morning to her sudden
engagement, Margery had not counted the cost of such an enterprise;
while a dim notion that she might get back again in time for the
ceremony, if the message meant nothing serious, should also be
mentioned in her favour.
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