For six months he had been shut up here, occasionally going to London, or for a week's walking tour, and during that time he had done his best to banish the image of Agnes from his heart.

Doubtless she was attempting the same conquest, for she never even wrote to him.

And now these two sorely-tried people were within speaking distance of one another, and strange results might be looked for unless honor held them sufficiently true.

Seeing that the cottage was near the family seat, and that Agnes sooner or later would arrive to stay with her brother and sister-in-law, Lambert might have expected that such a situation would come about in the natural course of things.
Perhaps he did, and perhaps--as some busybodies said--he took the cottage for that purpose; but so far, he had refrained from seeking the society of Pine's wife.

He would not even dine at The Manor, nor would he join the shooting-party, although Garvington, with a singular blindness, urged him to do so.