ugly, that his face was so heavy, his skin so thick and coarse and his
expression so evilly ill-tempered. She was not sufficiently analytical
to be conscious that she had with one bound leaped to the appalling
point of feeling uncontrollable physical abhorrence of the creature
to whom she was chained for life. She was terrified at finding herself
forced to combat the realisation that there were certain expressions
of his countenance which made her feel sick with repulsion. Her
self-reproach also was as great as her terror. He was her husband--her
husband--and she was a wicked girl. She repeated the words to herself
again and again, but remotely she knew that when she said, "He is my
husband," that was the worst thing of all.

This inward struggle was a bad preparation for any added misery, and
when their railroad journey terminated at Stornham Station she was met
by new bewilderment.

The station itself was a rustic place where wild roses climbed down a
bank to meet the very train itself. The station master's cottage had
roses and clusters of lilies waving in its tiny garden. The station
master, a good-natured, red-faced man, came forward, baring his head,
to open the railroad carriage door with his own hand. Rosy thought him
delightful and bowed and smiled sweet-temperedly to him and to his
wife and little girls, who were curtseying at the garden gate. She was
sufficiently homesick to be actually grateful to them for their air of
welcoming her. But as she smiled she glanced furtively at Nigel to see
if she was doing exactly the right thing.

He himself was not smiling and did not unbend even when the station
master, who had known him from his boyhood, felt at liberty to offer a
deferential welcome.