She clung to Roland in an access of terror apparently, and that it was more than partly simulated certainly he never thought. While seeming to be terrified by the ghostly sight, she hid her face in his neck; and then Roland felt it was all over with him!
'My darling—my darling, do not be so alarmed—it is only a transient sunset effect,' said he, kissing her cheek.
'Don't, Roland, don't—oh, you must not do that,' she murmured.
But Roland did that, again and again—pressing his lips to her eyes, her rippling hair—covering her face with kisses, while he half lifted, half led her homeward, up the steep and winding path to Merlwood, which they reached, as said, at a somewhat later period than usual.
'Well,' thought Hester, as she bathed her face and eyes to remove all traces of her late emotion, 'in three days I shall, for a time at least, see and hear no more of this. And yet—my heart will speak—I have loved him—all my life—ever since he was a boy; and she has known him, as it were, but yesterday!'
She put a hand to her forehead and pushed back the rings and rows of heavy brown hair, as if their weight oppressed her.
'Thank Heaven!' she thought, 'I can make my life a useful and a busy one, even here. Thank Heaven for the refuge of another love, with work and duty—love and duty to papa, and work for my poor people and their little ones! But why, oh why,' she added, while interlacing her fingers behind her neck, and looking round her wildly, 'did he love her after all?—why turn from me to her—that little golden-haired doll, with her winning ways and heartless nature; and how comes it that her languorous green eyes have power to awake such a passion as filled every accent of Roland's voice in the gloaming there? She came when she was not wanted; and both are cruel, heartless, treacherous!'
But, to do Annot justice, she knew nothing then of the tender relations that had begun to exist between Hester and her cousin, though we do not suppose that the knowledge would have much influenced that enterprising young lady in her plans and views, her wishes and purpose.
Hester felt that she had been ready enough—too ready, she now feared—to show him all her own heart, till that other girl came, and she thought till now that it had frozen up under Annot's presence and too evident influence on him.
That evening she did not appear at dinner, but sent excuses downstairs, and refused to receive even a visit from Annot. That would have been indeed too much to have undergone; but anon the mental storm passed away; the ruddy dawn stole into Hester's bedroom, and she rested her weary head against the open window to inhale the fresh morning breeze that came up the woody valley of the Esk, and over parterres of dewy flowers that were sweet enough to grace the bank whereon the Queen of Elfin slept.