Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/197

192 She was constantly met there by sudden drifts of tender thoughts, which only gave her unavailing regret and sorrow.

Her usual walk was a little lane that skirted the back of the house, and led directly over the common to Aske Hall. It was the road she had taken that unfortunate night when she made her unsuccessful effort to see her husband. The misery of that long, dark walk, the sight of the handsome, angry face of the man she still loved, the apparent hopelessness of all reconciliation, made it always a sorrowful way to her. For since her last conversation with her father, she understood plainly that he would regard any advance towards her husband as a deep and cruel wrong to himself. She was in a sore strait, and she felt utterly unable to do anything in it but endure and wait.

In the cold, gray afternoon she walked rapidly, folding her long black cloak tight around her, to protect herself from the keen air. She was not thinking of any grief in particular; it was only Anthony! Anthony! that ran like the echo of some mournful cry through her heart. At that moment Anthony was passing Burley House. Perhaps some hope of seeing his wife had led