"It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and she said she was not too tired to do it.

It is the kind of thing she ought to be given the Victoria Cross for--saving one from a dinner-party without fish." The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the glass rigidly in his eye.
"It is not only four miles to Maundell," he remarked, staring at the table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, "but it is four miles back." "By a singular coincidence," said Lady Maria.
The talk and laughter went on, and the lunch also, but Lord Walderhurst, for some reason best known to himself, did not finish his.

For a few seconds he stared at the table-cloth, then he pushed aside his nearly disposed-of cutlet, then he got up from his chair quietly.
"Excuse me, Maria," he said, and without further ado went out of the room, and walked toward the stables.
There was excellent fish at Maundell; Batch produced it at once, fresh, sound, and desirable.

Had she been in heir normal spirits, Emily would have rejoiced at the sight of it, and have retraced her four miles to Mallowe in absolute jubilation.

She would have shortened and beguiled her return journey by depicting to herself Lady Maria's pleasure and relief.
But the letter from Mrs.Cupp lay like a weight of lead in her pocket.
It had given her such things to think of as she walked that she had been oblivious to heather and bees and fleece-bedecked summer-blue sky, and had felt more tired than in any tramp through London streets that she could call to mind.