Creston. Soon she had a letter from Vannicock, and six weeks after her
husband's death her lover came to see her.

'I forgot to give you back this--that night,' he said presently, handing
her the little bag she had taken as her whole luggage when leaving.

Laura received it and absently shook it out. There fell upon the carpet
her brush, comb, slippers, nightdress, and other simple necessaries for a
journey. They had an intolerably ghastly look now, and she tried to
cover them.

'I can now,' he said, 'ask you to belong to me legally--when a proper
interval has gone--instead of as we meant.'

There was languor in his utterance, hinting at a possibility that it was
perfunctorily made. Laura picked up her articles, answering that he
certainly could so ask her--she was free. Yet not her expression either
could be called an ardent response. Then she blinked more and more
quickly and put her handkerchief to her face. She was weeping violently.

He did not move or try to comfort her in any way. What had come between
them? No living person. They had been lovers. There was now no
material obstacle whatever to their union. But there was the insistent
shadow of that unconscious one; the thin figure of him, moving to and fro
in front of the ghastly furnace in the gloom of Durnover Moor.

Yet Vannicock called upon Laura when he was in the neighbourhood, which
was not often; but in two years, as if on purpose to further the marriage
which everybody was expecting, the ---st Foot returned to Budmouth Regis.