There it lay outspread at her feet, the minute section of the huge land which her finite human vision could embrace.
How hard, when sitting upon the lawn at Normansgrave, to realize that Siberia existed all the time; that the sun was shining upon these strange places, illuminating the paths of these weird members of the great human family in their isolation!
The sounds that rose to her from below—the voices of children, the trampling of horses, the faint stir village life—had the effect of drops of water falling into an abyss of encircling silence, a measureless void. It was almost terrible.
In that wide setting, she and Felix!
And they were unwilling, uncongenial companions.
The whole meaning and value of human companionship seemed to be revealed by the touch of the infinite desolation. The inter-dependence of two human beings must be, in such a place, their sole refuge. How foolish, how petty, to let injuries rankle, in circumstances so profound, in spaces so immense!
She saw the sun-steeped champaign through a mist of unshed tears.
Two or three village children, filled with curiosity, had trotted after her to the church, and were at play below, with half their attention fixed upon the almost unparalleled sight of the foreign lady on the tower. Rona felt in her purse for some copper coins for them, and she descended the steps, purse in hand, looking at her money, and not where she placed her feet.
The children had been playing with a ball, which had fallen upon one of the steps. In the absorbing interest of watching the lady descend, they dare not advance to pick it up. Rona trod upon it, slipped, and, her hands being occupied, was unable to recover herself. She fell with some violence, and as the steps were not straight, but turned a corner, she was precipitated against the rail, and struck her side with such force as to take away her breath for a moment, and to render her unable to pick herself up from the place where she fell, or to do anything but gasp and struggle to keep back tears.
The pain was acute; so much so as to render her for a time unconscious of anything else. She sat doubled together in her agony, a cold sweat broke out upon her, she could only draw her breath with difficulty, and she was beset with a deadly fear. This was much the fashion of her fall of two years ago. Suppose she had set alight any lurking mischief that was there? Dread of having done so combined with the pain to make her sick and faint.