Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

41. CHAPTER XLI: MRS BOLD CONFIDES HER SORROW TO HER FRIEND MISS STANHOPE (continued)

'Are you returning to Plumstead, Mrs Bold?' Mr Arabin merely asked this by way of making conversation, but he immediately perceived that he was approaching dangerous ground.

'No,' said Mrs Bold, very quietly; 'I am going home to Barchester.'

'Oh, ah, yes. I had forgotten that you had returned.' And then Mr Arabin, finding it impossible to say anything further, stood silent till Charlotte had completed her plans, and Mrs Bold stood equally silent, intently occupied as it appeared in the arrangement of her rings.

And yet these two people were thoroughly in love with each other; and though one was a middle-aged clergyman, and the other a lady at any rate past the wishy-washy bread-and-butter period of life, they were as unable to tell their own minds to each other as any Damon and Phillis, whose united ages would not make up that to which Mr Arabin had already attained.

Madeline Neroni consented to her sister's proposal, and then the two ladies again went off in quest of Bertie Stanhope.