Why had he come, to go again like this?
And then there set in a period of resigned surmise, during which So like, so very like, was day to day, that to tell of one of them is to tell of all.

Nicholas would arrive between three and four in the afternoon, a faint trepidation influencing his walk as he neared her door.

He would knock; she would always reply in person, having watched for him from the window.

Then he would whisper--'He has not come ?' 'He has not,' she would say.
Nicholas would enter then, and she being ready bonneted, they would walk into the Sallows together as far as to the spot which they had frequently made their place of appointment in their youthful days.

A plank bridge, which Bellston had caused to be thrown over the stream during his residence with her in the manor-house, was now again removed, and all was just the same as in Nicholas's time, when he had been accustomed to wade across on the edge of the cascade and come up to her like a merman from the deep.