And he could find no way in which to break it.
For, in little broken sentences of horror and recollection, she kept
going back to her mother's story--her father's silence and suffering. It
was as though her mind could not disentangle itself from the load which
had been flung upon it--could not recover its healthiness of action amid
the phantom sights and sounds which beset imagination. Again and again
she must ask him for details--and shrink from the answers; must hide her
eyes with the little moan that wrung his heart; and break out in
ejaculations, as though of bewilderment, under a revelation so singular
and so terrible.
It was to be expected, of course; he could only hope it would soon pass.
Secretly, after a time, he was repelled and wearied. He answered her
with the same tender words, he tried to be all kindness; but more
perfunctorily. The oneness of that supreme moment vanished and did
not return.
Meanwhile, Diana's perceptions, stunned by the one overmastering
thought, gave her no warning. And, in truth, if Marsham could have
understood, the process of mental recovery was set going in her by just
this freedom of utterance to the man she loved--these words and looks
and tears--that brought ease after the dumb horror of the first hours.
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