He could not finish, but the stopping of the carriage at her door saved him the need of farther effort.
He assisted her to alight, rang the bell, and said goodnight in a voice which he was sure did not betray him to the coachman.
XIX
'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL
Othello, i. 3.
Poor Ashe got home more dead than alive. His passion had shaken him like a delirium. He had been swept away by his emotion, and had thrown to the winds past and future. He felt as the carriage drove away from Mrs. Fenton's as if he had been swung up and down on some monstrous wave and dashed, broken and bleeding, on a rough shore. He could not think; and fortunately for him he was even too benumbed to feel greatly.
He reached the Hermans' in a sort of half-stupor, in which indifference, keen joy, and bitter contrition were strangely mingled. The contrition, however, seemed somehow to belong to the future; it was what he must endure when the time should come for repentance; the joy was a present blessing, tingling in his every fibre.
He met Mrs. Herman in the hall. She exclaimed when she saw him, and he stood smiling at her, swaying as if he were intoxicated.
"What has happened?" she cried. "What have you done to your face?"
The room and his cousin swam before him in a golden mist. He felt that he was grinning idiotically, yet he could not stop. He tried to speak, but his lips seemed too swollen to form words. He put out his hand to grasp a chair, and perceived that he could not reach it.
"I—fall!" he managed to ejaculate.