"My lordship's horse will find his stables before morning with the groom
that has him in charge. I am going to row you home. Love expectant is bold;
but disappointed love may lack courage for a solitary jaunt after midnight.
Come, mistress, let us have no ceremony. We have done with that for
ever--as we have done with friendship. There are thousands of women in
England, all much of a pattern; and you are one of them. That is the end of
our romance."
He bent to his work, and rowed with a steady stroke, and in a stubborn
silence, which lasted till it was more strangely broken than such angry
silence is apt to be.
The tide was still running up, and it was as much as the single oarsman
could do, in that heavy boat, to hold his own against the stream.
Angela sat watching him, with her gaze rooted to that dark countenance and
bare head, on which the iron-grey hair waved thick and strong, for Fareham
had never consented to envelop his neck and shoulders in a mantle of dead
men's tresses, and wore his own hair after the fashion of Charles the
First's time. So intent was her watch, that the objects on either shore
passed her like shadows in a dream. The Primate's palace on her right hand,
as the boat swept round that great bend which the river makes opposite
Lambeth Marsh; on her left, as they neared London, the stern grandeur of
the Abbey and St.
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