Leaning out, she conquered her own deep fear, looking up at the stars and still praying, “O God, God.”
IV
HE could not read his face next day. It showed a change, but the significance of the change was hidden from her. He knew that she knew; was that it? or did he think that they could still pretend at the unchanged fairy-tale where one clasped hands simply, like children? Or did he trust her to spare them both, now that she knew?
When they were alone, this, more than all, the pale, jaded face seemed to tell her, it would be able to hide nothing; but its strength was in evasion; he would not be alone with her.
All the morning he spent with the general and in the afternoon he went away, a book under his arm, down to the burn.
From the library window Eppie watched him go. She could see for a long time the flicker of his white figure among the distant birches.
She sat in a low chair in the deep embrasure of the window-seat, silent and motionless. She felt, after the night’s revelation, an apathy, mental and physical; a willing pause; a lull of the spirit, that rested in its accepted fate, should it be joyful or tragic. The very fact of such acceptance partook of both tragedy and joy.
Grainger was with her, walking, as usual, up and down the room, glancing at her as he passed and repassed.
He felt, all about him, within and without, the pressure of some crisis; and his ignorance, his intuitions, struggling within him, made a consciousness, oddly mingled, of sharp pain, deep dread, and, superficially, a suffocating irritation, continually rising and continually repressed.