In the meantime she fell to dwelling upon his occupations, and recalling all the gossip she had ever heard on his account, the stories of his skill, and of his almost miraculous cures performed upon ailing animals; of his breaking-in colts in record time; of his more illicit career as a poacher. There was something in her which enjoyed this train of thought and the pictures it evoked. She liked to think of Lovel moving as stealthy as a cat through the woods at midnight, a snare in his hand and a game-bag across his back. She liked to think of him thus alone with the woods, the night, and the slinking animals, his foot cautious upon the leaves; she thought that he must be happy thus. She even liked to think of him bending over his victim, and of the warm, smoking blood spurted over his hands. Although he hunted them, he had a kinship with the animals. When he crouched, motionless as a hare, at the approach of a keeper, he, the hunter, was suddenly on the animals’ side more truly than the keeper, who was there to protect them. There was something ridiculous in the idea of a keeper protecting the animals against Lovel; even the rabbit squealing in the noose must know that only by chance was Lovel out for its capture,--an enemy of superior force, merely, rather than anything so utterly removed as a man. All this dwelling upon Lovel, which sent her absent-minded about the house and garden, did not bring her any nearer to making her peace with him. She was now no longer angry, but sore and puzzled, and she was sure that he must be unhappy too, although she knew that even after their reconciliation,--ultimately inevitable, to her mind,--he would never own to this. The necessity of this reconciliation seemed to her so simple and so obvious that she never thought of questioning her pride. Daily she rode upon the Down, and daily as she returned disappointed she contemplated in greater detail the possibility of sending, after all, a second message to Lovel. She could even send it in her father’s name. But he would not come. She was convinced he would not come. That was not the method to adopt. She must take him by surprise; she must startle him; appear suddenly before him, so that he would smile before he had time to remember his grievance, and, having once smiled, it would be too late to resume a severe face.