Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/367

after this; but when he did meet me, there was less of pride and more of touching melancholy in his manner than before. Oh, how he annoyed me! I was obliged, at last almost entirely to remit my visits to the Grove, at the expence of deeply offending Mrs. Hargrave and seriously afflicting poor Esther, who really values my society—for want of better, and who ought not to suffer for the fault of her brother. But that indefatigable foe was not yet vanquished: he seemed to be always on the watch. I frequently saw him riding lingeringly past the premises, looking searchingly round him as he went—or if I did not, Rachel did. That sharp-sighted woman soon guessed how matters stood between us, and descrying the enemy's movements from her elevation at the nursery-window, she would give me a quiet intimation, if she saw me preparing for a walk when she had reason to believe he was about, or to think it likely that he would meet or overtake me in the way I meant to traverse. I would then