At the moment Stafford left the Villa, Ida was standing by the window in the drawing-room of Heron Hall. On the table beside her lay a book which she had thrown down with a gesture of impatience. She was too restless to read, or to work; and the intense quietude of the great house weighed upon her with the weight of a tomb.
All day, since she had left Stafford, his words of passionate love had haunted her. They sang in her ears even as she spoke to her father or Jessie, or the dogs who followed her about with wistful eyes as if they were asking her what ailed her, and as if they would help her.
He loved her! She had said it to herself a thousand times all through the long afternoon, the dragging evening. He loved her. It was so strange, so incredible. They had only met three or four times; they had said so little to each other. Why, she could remember almost every word. He loved her, had knelt to her, he had told her so in passionate words, with looks which made her heart tremble, her breath come fast as she recalled them. That is, he wanted her to be his wife, to give herself to him, to be with him always, never to leave him.
The strangeness, the suddenness of the thing overwhelmed her so that she could not think of it calmly. He had asked her to think of it, to decide, to give him an answer. Why could she not? She had always, hitherto, known her own mind. If anyone had asked her a question about the estate, about the farm, she had known what to answer, important as the question might have been. But now she seemed as if her mind were paralyzed, as if she could not decide. Was it because she had never thought of love; because she had never dreamt that anyone would love her so much as to want to have her by his side for all his life?
As she looked through the window at the moonlight on the lawn, she thought of him; called up the vision of his tall, graceful figure and handsome face—yes; he was handsome, she knew. But she had scarcely given a thought to his face; and only felt that it was good to have him near her, to hear him talk in his deep voice, broken sometimes by the short laugh which sounded almost boyish. It had been good to have him near her—But then, she had been so lonely, had seen so few men—scarcely any at all—Suppose when she met him next she said "No," told him that she could not love him, and he went away, leaving her forever; would she be sorry?
She turned away from the window suddenly, nearly stumbling over Donald, who was lying at her feet, his nose on his paws, his great eyes fixed sadly and speculatively on her face, and caught up the book. But his face came between her and the page, and she put the book down and went into the hall.
Her father was in the library, there was no sound in the house to drown the voice, the passionately pleading voice which rang in her ears.
"I must go out," she said, "I shall be able to think in the air, shall be able to decide."
She caught up a shawl and flung it carelessly over her head, quite unconscious that the fleecy, rose-coloured wool made an exquisite frame for the girlish loveliness of her face, and opening the door, went slowly down the broken, lichen-covered steps, the two dogs following at her heels.
She drew in the keen but balmy air with a long breath, and looked up at the moon, now a yellow crescent in the starry sky; and something in the beauty of the night, something subtly novel thrilled her with a strange sense of throbbing, pulsing joy and happiness, underneath which lurked as subtle a fear and dread, the fear and dread of those who stand upon the threshold of the unknown; who, in passing that threshold, enter a world of strange things which they never more may leave.