But, oh! how she wished it had been different! Afterwards, when in the privacy of her own little room at Acol Court, she thought over the whole of that long and dismal day, she oft found herself wondering what it was through it all that had seemed so terrifying to her, so strange, so unreal. Something had struck her as weird: something which she could not then define; but she was quite sure that it was not merely the unusual chilliness of that rainy summer's day, which had caused her to tremble so, when--in the vestry--her husband had taken her hand and kissed her. She had then looked into his face, which--though the vestry was but ill lighted by a tiny very dusty window--she had never seen quite so clearly before, and then it was that that amazing sense of something awful and unreal had descended upon her like a clammy shroud. He had very swiftly averted his own gaze from her, but she had seen something in his face which she did not understand, over which she had pondered ever since without coming to any solution of this terrible riddle. She had pondered over it during that interminable journey back from Dover to Acol. Her husband had not even suggested accompanying her on her homeward way, nor did she ask him to do so. She did not even think it strange that he gave her no explanation of the reason why he should not return to his lodgings at Acol. She felt like a somnambulist, and wondered how soon she would wake and find herself in her small and uncomfortable bed at the Court. The next day that feeling of unreality was still there; that sensation of mystery, of something supernatural which persistently haunted her. One thing was quite sure; that all joy had gone out of her life. It was possible that love was still there--she did not know--she was too young to understand the complex sensations which suddenly had made a woman of her ... but it was a joyless love now: and all that she knew of a certainty about her own feelings at the present was that she hoped she would never have to gaze into her lover's face again ... and ... Heaven help her! ... that he might never touch her again with his lips. Obedient to his behests--hurriedly spoken as she stepped into the chaise at Dover after the marriage ceremony--she had wandered out every evening beyond the ha-ha into the park, on the chance of meeting him. The evenings now were soft and balmy after the rain: the air carried a pungent smell of dahlias and of oak-leaved geraniums to her nostrils, which helped her to throw off that miserable feeling of mental lassitude which had weighed her down ever since that fateful day at Dover. She walked slowly along, treading the young tendrils of the moss, watching with wistful eyes the fleecy clouds, as they appeared through the branches of the elms, scurrying swiftly out towards the sea ... out towards freedom.