She and Anthony met but seldom through the winter, for after that one interview, which Winifred blamed herself for holding in tender remembrance, they knew that it was better not to see each other more than was necessary. But when the spring came, the time when all beautiful things seem possible, the burden weighed more heavily, and she longed feverishly to hear that the marriage day was fixed. Anthony, too, felt that the delay must not last much longer. Ada could not accuse him of having given her no time in which to make her resolution, and these months of waiting seemed to be eating the heart out of more lives than one. Without coming to a determination beforehand, he one morning obeyed a sudden impulse and started for Underham to see Mr Bennett and let matters be set in train. His mother went to the gate with him, where Nat Wills was at work, putting in some plants which Mr Robert had sent over. Anthony turned round more than once to see her nodding at him, and smiling with happy content. As he passed through the village the little gardens were bright with clumps of blue gentianellas, out of the midst of which scarlet anemones blazed. Inside the school the children were singing and marching, and stamping merrily as they marched; the rooks were hard at work, the air was full of sound: here was Anthony setting off to fix his wedding-day. They are sad hearts sometimes that go on what should be the happiest errands. He had scarcely got out of the village, however, when, to his surprise, he saw Mr Bennett himself driving towards him. He did not notice Anthony until he was close upon him, and then pulled up suddenly. "I was coming to Thorpe to see you, Miles," he said in an oddly constrained voice. "I suppose you are on the road to our house?" "Yes, I am." "Well, would you mind driving a mile towards Appleton with me instead? I've some things I must talk over with you quietly, and should be glad to feel secure from interruptions." At any other time Anthony might have been struck with the contradiction that after he had jumped into the dog-cart, Mr Bennett, instead of plunging at once into his subject in his usual good-tempered, pompous fashion, remained silent, and seemed to have a difficulty in beginning the conversation. But Anthony was too much absorbed in his own difficulties to notice those of another, and the silence was too great a relief for him to think it strange. It troubled his companion, however, for he did not know how to break it, and being a straightforward man, any roundabout course was very unwelcome. He looked over the hedge-rows on either side, at the fields which, owing to a wann wet winter, had lost no vividness of green, at the apple orchards nestling round the old thatched and weather-beaten farms, at the less frequent patches where the blue green of the young wheat contrasted with the red earth from which it sprang; but nothing that he saw helped him to his purpose.