" She felt the pitiful inadequacy of this, and
understood, with a sense of despair, that in her inability to express
herself she must give him an impression of coldness and reluctance; but
she could not help it. She could not forget that he had never spoken
to her of marriage till Mr. Royall had forced the word from his lips;
though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound
her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to
herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.
She had not seen Mr. Royall on her return to the red house. The morning
after her parting from Harney, when she came down from her room, Verena
told her that her guardian had gone off to Worcester and Portland. It
was the time of year when he usually reported to the insurance agencies
he represented, and there was nothing unusual in his departure except
its suddenness. She thought little about him, except to be glad he was
not there....
She kept to herself for the first days, while North Dormer was
recovering from its brief plunge into publicity, and the subsiding
agitation left her unnoticed.
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