‘We shall go as far as the end of this lane together?’ said Eleanor tentatively; ‘but you must not let me take you farther out of your way.’ ‘My way is where I choose or need to go,’ replied Michael carelessly. ‘I see your groom has dropped behind, but if you will allow me, I will just tell him to ride on as fast as he can—even he cannot now very well miss the way. He must see your maid, and tell her to have lots of dry things ready for you, and some hot tea or coffee; and then, perhaps, you may escape without harm. Otherwise, I would not answer for consequences.’ ‘But——’ ‘Oh, of course I will ride home with you,’ he answered to her unspoken objection. ‘It will be all right.’ Eleanor’s high spirit failed to come to her aid. ‘Thorsgarth is so much out of your way,’ she said, in a low tone. ‘Not when I choose to go there. Wait a moment,’ he answered; and stopping, he called the groom up, gave him his directions succinctly, and bade him ride on. William touched his hat, spurred on, and was soon out of sight in the glimmering, shadowy light. Eleanor heaved a deep, if silent sigh. She had not given way under the shock of her plunge into the cold water, nor, except physically, and for a moment, afterwards; but now something laid a strange oppression over her heart. Michael was very polite to her; he neglected not a thing which could help her, even to this forethought about acquainting her maid with what had happened. She had thought about him more than once during the last fortnight; had heard of him a great deal oftener than once, chiefly from Mrs. Parker, the old doctor’s sister, with whom she had become acquainted, and from many others. All she had heard had prepossessed her in his favour, but now that she was with him, actually in his presence, and as it were under his guidance, for the time, she felt afraid of him—felt a strange and painful constraint; was nervous, timid, tongue-tied. Woman-like, she had the story of his slighted love and his other wrongs, very large and very much present in her mind; and she credited him with having them before himself in just the same proportion. Then, too, his tone was curt, if civil. It did not invite to anything like friendly and familiar intercourse. ‘Civil, civil,’ repeated Eleanor in her own mind. ‘Yes, indeed, “civil as an orange,” and—oh, if he would but speak!’ He did, exactly at that moment. ‘I have ridden over this road for ten years,’ he remarked, ‘and I may have met an acquaintance on it, perhaps, three or four times, and the hounds now and then. How came you to be here?’ ‘I don’t know myself how I got on to this road,’ said she, laughing a little nervously. ‘But I know what I intended to do when I set out.’ And then she related to him the scheme of exploration which had taken possession of her mind.