 and give way to a
more wakeful vision of Offendene and Pennicote under their cooler lights. She
saw the grey shoulders of the downs, the cattle-specked fields, the shadowy
plantations with rutted lanes where the barked timber lay for a wayside seat,
the neatly-clipped hedges on the road from the parsonage to Offendene, the
avenue where she was gradually discerned from the windows, the hall-door
opening, and her mother or one of the troublesome sisters coming out to meet
her. All that brief experience of a quiet home which had once seemed a dulness
to be fled from, now came back to her as a restful escape, a station where she
found the breath of morning and the unreproaching voice of birds, after
following a lure through a long Satanic masquerade, which she had entered on
with an intoxicated belief in its disguises, and had seen the end of in
shrieking fear lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who were
dropping their human mummery and hissing around her with serpent tongues.
    In this way Gwendolen's mind paused over Offendene and made it the scene of
many thoughts; but she gave no further outward sign of interest in this
conversation, any more than in Sir Hugo's opinion on the telegraphic cable or
her uncle's views of the Church Rate Abolition Bill. What subjects will not our
talk embrace in leisurely day-journeying from Genoa to London? Even strangers,
after glancing from China to Peru and opening their mental stores with a
liberality threatening a mutual impression of poverty on any future meeting, are
liable to become excessively confidential. But the baronet and the Rector were
under a still stronger pressure towards cheerful communication: they were like
acquaintances compelled to a long drive in a mourning-coach, who having first
remarked that the occasion is a melancholy one, naturally proceed to enliven it
by the most miscellaneous discourse. »I don't mind telling you,« said Sir Hugo
to the Rector, in mentioning some private detail; while the Rector, without
saying so, did not mind telling the baronet about his sons, and the difficulty
of placing them in the world. By dint of discussing all persons and things
within driving-reach of Diplow, Sir Hugo got himself wrought to a pitch of
interest in that former home, and of conviction that it was his pleasant duty to
regain and strengthen his personal influence in the neighbourhood, that made him
declare his intention of taking his family to the place for a month or two
before the autumn was over; and Mr. Gascoigne cordially rejoiced in that
prospect. Altogether, the journey was continued
