He sat with his eyes
bent down, and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller--
he seemed so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion
and old tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting
one hand on his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other
on his shoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly--
"Look up, Nicholas."
He raised his eyes with a little start and looked at her half
amazed for a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress,
the trembling about her mouth, all said, "I know;" and her hands
and eyes rested gently on him. He burst out crying and they
cried together, she sitting at his side. They could not yet speak
to each other of the shame which she was bearing with him, or of the
acts which had brought it down on them. His confession was silent,
and her promise of faithfulness was silent. Open-minded as she was,
she nevertheless shrank from the words which would have expressed their
mutual consciousness, as she would have shrunk from flakes of fire.
She could not say, "How much is only slander and false suspicion?"
and he did not say, "I am innocent."
CHAPTER LXXV.
"Le sentiment de la fausset? des plaisirs pr?sents, et
l'ignorance de la vanit? des plaisirs absents causent
l'inconstance."--PASCAL.
Rosamond had a gleam of returning cheerfulness when the house was freed
from the threatening figure, and when all the disagreeable creditors
were paid.
Pages:
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142