The boys and irresponsible young men crowded after , expecting some excitement , but they were disappointed . Ludovic strode on until he overtook Theodora and Arnold Sherman , and then fell meekly in behind them . Theodora hardly enjoyed her walk home , although Arnold Sherman laid himself out to be especially entertaining . Her heart yearned after Ludovic , whose shuffling footsteps she heard behind her . She feared that she had been very cruel , but she was in for it now . She steeled herself by the reflection that it was all for his own good , and she talked to Arnold Sherman as if he were the one man in the world . Poor , deserted Ludovic , following humbly behind , heard her , and if Theodora had known how bitter the cup she was holding to his lips really was , she would never have been resolute enough to present it , no matter for what ultimate good . When she and Arnold turned in at her gate , Ludovic had to stop . Theodora looked over her shoulder and saw him standing still on the road . His forlorn figure haunted her thoughts all night . If Anne had not run over the next day and bolstered up her convictions , she might have spoiled everything by prematurely relenting . Ludovic , meanwhile , stood still on the road , quite oblivious to the hoots and comments of the vastly amused small boy contingent , until Theodora and his rival disappeared from his view under the firs in the hollow of her lane . Then he turned about and went home , not with his usual leisurely amble , but with a perturbed stride which proclaimed his inward disquiet . He felt bewildered . If the world had come suddenly to an end or if the lazy , meandering Grafton River had turned about and flowed up hill , Ludovic could not have been more astonished . For fifteen years he had walked home from meetings with Theodora ; and now this elderly stranger , with all the glamour of `` the States '' hanging about him , had coolly walked off with her under Ludovic 's very nose . Worse -- most unkindest cut of all -- Theodora had gone with him willingly ; nay , she had evidently enjoyed his company . Ludovic felt the stirring of a righteous anger in his easy-going soul . When he reached the end of his lane , he paused at his gate , and looked at his house , set back from the lane in a crescent of birches . Even in the moonlight , its weather-worn aspect was plainly visible .
He thought XXXXX the `` palatial residence '' rumour ascribed to Arnold Sherman in Boston , and stroked his chin nervously with his sunburnt fingers .
If after behind from in of over that until with