The room was dimly lit; in the mirrors she saw now and then
the ghostly passage of some one who seemed herself and not herself. The
windows were open to a misty garden, waiting for moonrise; in the house
all was silence; only from the distant road and village came voices
sometimes of children, or the sounds of a barrel-organ, fragmentary
and shrill.
Loneliness ached in her heart--spoke to her from the future. And five
miles away Oliver, too, was lonely--and in pain. _Pain_!--the thought of
it, as of something embodied and devilish, clutching and tearing at a
man already crushed and helpless--gave her no respite. The tears ran
down her cheeks as she moved to and fro, her hands at her breast.
Yet she was helpless. What could she do? Even if he were free from
Alicia, even if he wished to recall her, how could he--maimed and
broken--take the steps that could alone bring her to his side? If their
engagement had subsisted, horror, catastrophe, the approach of death
itself, could have done nothing to part them. Now, how was a man in such
a plight to ask from a woman what yet the woman would pay a universe to
give? And in the face of the man's silence, how could the woman speak?
No!--she began to see her life as the Vicar saw it: pledged to large
causes, given to drudgeries--necessary, perhaps noble, for which the
happy are not meant.
Pages:
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651