"I wonder if you ever will?" He looked musingly into her indistinct face, as if he would read the future there. "Now have pity, and tell me: will you try?"
"To love you again?"
"Yes; if you can."
"I don't know how to reply," she answered, her embarrassment proving her truth. "Will you promise to leave me quite free as to seeing you or not seeing you?"
"Certainly. Have I given any ground for you to doubt my first promise in that respect?"
She was obliged to admit that he had not.
"Then I think that you might get your heart out of that grave," said he, with playful sadness. "It has been there a long time."
She faintly shook her head, but said, "I'll try to think of you more--if I can."
With this Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked her when she would meet him again.
"As we arranged--in a fortnight."
"If it must be a fortnight it must!"
"This time at least. I'll consider by the day I see you again if I can shorten the interval."
"Well, be that as it may, I shall come at least twice a week to look at your window."
"You must do as you like about that. Good-night."
"Say 'husband.'"
She seemed almost inclined to give him the word; but exclaiming, "No, no; I cannot," slipped through the garden-hedge and disappeared.
Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told her that he should haunt the precincts of the dwelling. But his persistence in this course did not result in his seeing her much oftener than at the fortnightly interval which she had herself marked out as proper.
At these times, however, she punctually appeared, and as the spring wore on the meetings were kept up, though their character changed but little with the increase in their number.
The small garden of the cottage occupied by the Tangs family-- father, son, and now son's wife--aligned with the larger one of the timber-dealer at its upper end; and when young Tim, after leaving work at Melbury's, stood at dusk in the little bower at the corner of his enclosure to smoke a pipe, he frequently observed the surgeon pass along the outside track before- mentioned. Fitzpiers always walked loiteringly, pensively, looking with a sharp eye into the gardens one after another as he proceeded; for Fitzpiers did not wish to leave the now absorbing spot too quickly, after travelling so far to reach it; hoping always for a glimpse of her whom he passionately desired to take to his arms anew.
Now Tim began to be struck with these loitering progresses along the garden boundaries in the gloaming, and wondered what they boded. It was, naturally, quite out of his power to divine the singular, sentimental revival in Fitzpiers's heart; the fineness of tissue which could take a deep, emotional--almost also an artistic--pleasure in being the yearning inamorato of a woman he once had deserted, would have seemed an absurdity to the young sawyer. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were separated; therefore the question of affection as between them was settled. But his Suke had, since that meeting on their marriage-day, repentantly admitted, to the urgency of his questioning, a good deal concerning her past levities. Putting all things together, he could hardly avoid connecting Fitzpiers's mysterious visits to this spot with Suke's residence under his roof. But he made himself fairly easy: the vessel in which they were about to emigrate sailed that month; and then Suke would be out of Fitzpiers's way forever.
The interval at last expired, and the eve of their departure arrived. They were pausing in the room of the cottage allotted to them by Tim's father, after a busy day of preparation, which left them weary. In a corner stood their boxes, crammed and corded, their large case for the hold having already been sent away. The firelight shone upon Suke's fine face and form as she stood looking into it, and upon the face of Tim seated in a corner, and upon the walls of his father's house, which he was beholding that night almost for the last time.
Tim Tangs was not happy. This scheme of emigration was dividing him from his father--for old Tangs would on no account leave Hintock--and had it not been for Suke's reputation and his own dignity, Tim would at the last moment have abandoned the project.
