"
Again she kissed him, disengaged herself very gently, and went.
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH WHICH IS ALSO CHAPTER THE LAST
At Lady's Oak--an ancient forest boundary--where the main road forks,
Damaris swung the dog-cart to the left, across the single-arch stone
bridge spanning the Arne; and on, up the long winding ascent from the
valley-bottom to the moorlands patched with dark fir plantations, which
range inland from behind Stourmouth. This constituted the goal of her
journey; for, the high-lying plateau reached, leagues of open country are
disclosed north and west, far as the eye carries, to the fine bare
outline of the Wiltshire Downs. She asked for wide prospects, for air and
ample space; but as floored by stable earth rather than by the eternal
unrest and "fruitless, sonorous furrows" of the sea.
Ever since the day of the funeral, now nearly a fortnight ago, Damaris
had kept within the sheltering privacy of the house and grounds. That
day, one of soft drizzling rain and clinging ground fog, had also been to
her one of hardly endurable distraction.
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