It was not until I had ridden half a mile beyond the suburbs that I
looked round me, and discovered towards what part of the country I was
proceeding. I drew the rein directly, and turned my horse's head back
again, towards the south. To follow the favourite road which I had so
often followed with Clara; to stop perhaps at some place where I had
often stopped with her, was more than I had the courage or the
insensibility to do at that moment.

I rode as far as Ewell, and stopped there: the darkness had overtaken
me, and it was useless to tire my horse by going on any greater
distance. The next morning, I was up almost with sunrise; and passed
the greater part of the day in walking about among villages, lanes,
and fields, just as chance led me. During the night, many thoughts
that I had banished for the last week had returned--those thoughts of
evil omen under which the mind seems to ache, just as the body aches
under a dull, heavy pain, to which we can assign no particular place
or cause. Absent from Margaret, I had no resource against the
oppression that now overcame me. I could only endeavour to alleviate
it by keeping incessantly in action; by walking or riding, hour after
hour, in the vain attempt to quiet the mind by wearying out the body.
Apprehension of the failure of my application to Mr. Sherwin had
nothing to do with the vague gloom which now darkened my thoughts;
they kept too near home for that. Besides, what I had observed of
Margaret's father, especially during the latter part of my interview
with him, showed me plainly enough that he was trying to conceal,
under exaggerated surprise and assumed hesitation, his secret desire
to profit at once by my offer; which, whatever conditions might clog
it, was infinitely more advantageous in a social point of view, than
any he could have hoped for. It was not his delay in accepting my
proposals, but the burden of deceit, the fetters of concealment forced