She tried to put
aside her increasing anxiety about her uncle and had more difficulty in
dealing with John Penhallow and his over-quiet friendliness. She thought
too of her own coldly-worded letters and of the suffering of which she
had been kept so long ignorant. He had loved her once; did he now? She
was annoyed to hear the voice of Mark Rivers.
"So, Leila, you have run away, and I do not wonder. This turmoil is most
distressing."
"Yes, yes--and everything--those years of war and what it has brought
us--and my dear Uncle Jim--and how is it to end? Let us talk of something
else. I came here to be--well, to see if I could find peace of soul and
what these silent forests have often given me, strength to take up again
the cares and troubles of life." He did not excuse his intrusion nor seem
to notice the obvious suggestions, but fell upon their personal
application to himself.
"They have never done that for me," he said sadly. "There is some defect
in my nature--some want. I have no such relation to nature; it is
speechless to me--mute, and I never needed more what I fail to find in
myself. The war and its duties gave me the only entire happiness I have
had for years." Then he added, in a curiously contemplative manner, "It
does seem as if a man had a right to some undisturbed happiness in life.
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