Ever since her confession to
Curly, she had been making fresh discoveries in her own heart; and now
the tide of her love swelled so strong that she felt it must break out
in an agony of joy, and betray her if once she looked in the face of
Alec alive from the dead. Nor was this all. What she had done about his
mother's debt, must come out soon; and although Alec could not think
that she meant to lay him under obligation, he might yet feel under
obligation, and that she could not bear. These things and many more so
worked in the sensitive maiden that as soon as she heard Alec and his
mother go to the dining-room she put on her bonnet and cloak, stole
like a thief through the house to the back door, and let herself out
into the night.
She avoided the path, and went through the hedge into a field of
stubble at the back of the house across which she made her way to the
turnpike road and the new bridge over the Glamour. Often she turned to
look back to the window of the room where he that had been dead was
alive and talking with his widowed mother; and only when the
intervening trees hid it from her sight did she begin to think what she
should do. She could think of nothing but to go to her aunt once more,
and ask her to take her in for a few days.
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