Mrs. Bradford, waiting for her lunch, also looked at the wheel-marks left by the passing of the workman's barrow over the place where the privet hedge used to be. She might not like it, but she was without that fiery hatred of change which did actually release Miss Ethel's spirit for its escape to certainty.
Mrs. Bradford was timid about being alone in the house after sunset since her sister's death, so Caroline usually went out between tea and early supper. On this occasion she hurried off directly tea was over, in her anxiety to avoid a possible meeting with Godfrey. She did not even wait to go upstairs and change her dress, but kept on the old blouse and skirt she had been wearing beneath her overall, put on an old garden hat and ran down the drive, fearing all the time to hear Mrs. Bradford calling from the doorway.
However, she reached the road in safety, thankful that there was now no chance of being obliged to usher in Godfrey with Mrs. Bradford's dull rather malicious gaze fixed on her. But even while she waited a second, out of breath, she caught sight of his figure coming along the road from the town, and hurried on again towards the cliff top. There was the bench on which she had sat that moonlight night with Godfrey, when it seemed to her that they could love each other for ever just the same, no matter what might divide them. She had been filled then with the exultation which is so difficult to distinguish at the time from happiness--which seems so independent of human accident--a joy never to be assailed by common experience.
But all that had gone. Now she was going down the rough, muddy path on the side of the clay cliff--slipping, making her shoes and skirt dirty, grasping at the wiry grass as she slipped and not caring--simply because she wanted to escape any chance of meeting the same man who had inspired those wonderful emotions. The contrast seemed to hit a blow on her heart, even though she was not going to let it hurt her any more. But at last she reached the bottom, and stood for a moment to rest.
The sea, heaving with a strong ground-swell, reflected the pale blue of the sky in millions of pools of light on the dun-coloured surface. She was not conscious of looking at it, but she had a feeling of freshness and consolation--of freedom from herself. The truth was that, without knowing it, she had made a friend of the sea. She had done so during all those hours in the pay-box on the promenade when she endured that hard spiritual experience which turns people from children into men and women--and the sea remains faithful.