Nothing could influence him to censure Betty for her share in the
exploit. He never once believed that she had acted voluntarily.
Anxious to know how she was getting on, he despatched the trusty
servant Tupcombe to Evershead village, close to King's-Hintock,
timing his journey so that he should reach the place under cover of
dark. The emissary arrived without notice, being out of livery, and
took a seat in the chimney-corner of the Sow-and-Acorn.

The conversation of the droppers-in was always of the nine days'
wonder--the recent marriage. The smoking listener learnt that Mrs.
Dornell and the girl had returned to King's-Hintock for a day or
two, that Reynard had set out for the Continent, and that Betty had
since been packed off to school. She did not realize her position
as Reynard's child-wife--so the story went--and though somewhat awe-
stricken at first by the ceremony, she had soon recovered her
spirits on finding that her freedom was in no way to be interfered
with.

After that, formal messages began to pass between Dornell and his
wife, the latter being now as persistently conciliating as she was
formerly masterful. But her rustic, simple, blustering husband
still held personally aloof. Her wish to be reconciled--to win his
forgiveness for her stratagem--moreover, a genuine tenderness and
desire to soothe his sorrow, which welled up in her at times,
brought her at last to his door at Falls-Park one day.

They had not met since that night of altercation, before her
departure for London and his subsequent illness. She was shocked at
the change in him. His face had become expressionless, as blank as