CHAPTER XV.
What Was Inevitable.
By the window of her room, opened to the river, Freda remained all the rest of the night. There was no soul near her. She watched the grey river until the moon sank, and until the sun rose slowly from behind the opposite shore. No one would ever understand it. It was not the kind of sorrow that could be confessed and forgotten. Something irrevocable had controlled her fate. Now, so long as the world stood, her heart would find no friend to learn its bitterness. Deep in its inscrutable recesses suffering would call to suffering and receive no answer. Alone, desperately alone, she must stumble bravely before the inevitable current that bears towards to-morrow.
But these night thoughts gradually surrendered their poignancy to the bald light of growing day.
In the middle of the forenoon Mauney came to the house.
She took him into the library, and pointed to a chair beside the large French window that let in a blinding shaft of sunshine.
“I hope I’ll be pardoned,” he said, “for coming down so early.”
She made no reply, but watched him as he leaned forward to gaze at the sunlight on the rug.