No ugly light of revelation had broken upon
her, as upon him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered the
first young exaltation of love; it had somehow divided them from the
happy lovers of every day; it had also divided them--she hardly knew how
or why--from that moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of immediate
announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing was to be said--except to
Muriel--till Lady Lucy knew. She was glad. It made her bliss, in this
intervening moment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of
Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a trembling love
sprang up in her. And the sense of having come to shelter and to haven
seemed to give her strength for what she had never yet dared to face.
The past was now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved to
write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there might be; not
because she was afraid that anything might come between her and Oliver;
rather because now, with his love to support her, she could bear
whatever there might be to bear.
She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming in the
drawing-room--with intervals between the strummings--as though the
player stopped to listen for something or some one.
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