Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?"
There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuine pity and
tenderness of his action; but the woman saw before her only the familiar
dupe of her life, and felt an infinite relief mingled with a certain
contempt for his weakness and anger at her previous fears of him.
"You might have driven over, then, yourself," she said in a high,
querulous voice, "if you knew it so well, and have spared ME this
horrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved
anything--there! And I have had all this disgusting bother!"
For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to her face, but
he checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coat from her shoulders
and shook it out, wiped the dust from her face and eyes with his own
handkerchief, held her hat and blew the dust from it with a vivid memory
of performing the same service for Mrs. Horncastle only an hour before,
while she arranged her hair; and then, lifting her again into the buggy,
said quietly, as he took his seat beside her and grasped the reins:--
"I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and you can go
at once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired, you are
nervous and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anything now until you
feel quite yourself again."
He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at the reins,
lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes they were at the
hotel.
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