Nevertheless, about an hour before sunset, the great lumbering carriage was brought round to the door; the lady and Ralph entered it; and, followed by several armed servants on horseback, they took their way toward the upper gates, by a road not quite so much frequented as either the lower road or the foot-path which crossed the park below the house. It was a soft and not unpleasant evening, such as one often finds in that climate, with a misty, hazy sort of air, through which the sun struggled from time to time, shedding a rosy light over the whole scene around.
Hortensia was somewhat silent, and evidently anxious--I do not mean to say frightened, for she was unconscious of any personal danger--but the perils of her companion seemed to weigh upon her; and when she did converse, her whole conversation consisted of inquiries, consultations, and advice as to the best means of passing on undetected till an assured place of safety should be reached. Every consideration seemed merged in that one. There was no longer the light, lark-like flight of fancy which had often, in the leisure hours preceding, carried away the mind of Ralph Woodhall into far etherial fields of space; there was no longer the calm, thoughtful, yet not unimaginative wandering of the spirit through more familiar scenes filled with association, where, side by side, they had gone on over the leas, and through the meadows of ordinary life, drawing as much essence of dream from a cowslip, or a primrose, or a violet, as bolder efforts of the fancy would extract from the high mountain or the floating cloud. All was now hard, dry matter of necessity and business. That was the only difference between the communion of the preceding days and that of the present; but it was great.
The edge of the sky grew rosy; the sun set; the night came. The misty clouds, from which had dropped, occasionally, large tears upon the earth, passed away like gloomy thoughts from a bright mind; and star by star came out in the refreshed sky, and looked down upon the earth in melancholy calmness.
Alone, and side by side, Hortensia Danvers and Ralph Woodhall wended slowly on. I must not pretend to look into her bosom; the eye of man never did. There may be some women who can divine what mysterious things were passing therein, but even of women, not all.