Her eyes took on the look that tells of inward, rather than outward,
vision. Her thoughts were such as she would not have told to any one,
but not because of evil in them.

This was the lady to whom Robert Trenholme, the master of the college at
Chellaston, had written his letter; and she was thinking of that letter
now, and of him, pondering much that, by some phantasy of dreams, she
should have been suddenly reminded of him by the voice of the man who
had passed through the car with the milk.

Her mind flitted lightly to the past; to a season she had once spent in
a fashionable part of London, and to her acquaintance with the young
curate, who was receiving some patronage from the family with whom she
was visiting. She had been a beauty then; every one danced to the tune
she piped, and this curate--a mere fledgeling--had danced also. That was
nothing. No, it was nothing that he had, for a time, followed lovesick
in her train--she never doubted that he had had that sickness, although
he had not spoken of it--all that had been notable in the acquaintance
was that she, who at that time had played with the higher aims and
impulses of life, had thought, in her youthful arrogance, that she
discerned in this man something higher and finer than she saw in other
men. She had been pleased to make something of a friend of him,
condescending to advise and encourage him, pronouncing upon his desire
to seek a wider field in a new country, and calling it good. Later, when
he was gone, and life for her had grown more quiet for lack of
circumstances to feed excitement, she had wondered sometimes if this man
had recovered as perfectly from that love-sickness as others had done.
That was all--absolutely all. Her life had lately come again into
indirect relations with him through circumstances over which neither he
nor she had had any control; and now, when she was about to see him, he