In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory.
"We have quarrelled," Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her
that her lover was to come. "Then you had better make it up again,"
the Duchess had answered,--and there had been an end of it. Nothing
more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to
meet the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the
disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would
bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling
about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among
the water-lilies, and of an early death-bed. Then she had pictured to
herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old maiden
lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist in
looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And now
she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing had
been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty to
have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take her
to the railway station.
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