It was a painful parting. Misconception on one side, and deep suffering with pride, upon the other. No lighting of the eyes, no pressure of the hand, no warm good-bye, to keep his heart alive while she was away.
He stood, after the cars had left, deeply pondering the strange affair, until the crowd jostled him, and brought him back to the external world, with its toil, its sounds of mirth, and its varied forms of life.
What a break in his usual peaceful life; what a void he found in his soul when he entered the silent home. There was no lingering atmosphere of love about the rooms; everything was put away out of sight. The order was painful, and he left to seek companionship if not sympathy.
CHAPTER X.
“What is it like, Dawn?”
“Like a great Soul that has absorbed a million lives into its own, and cannot rest, it is so full of joy and sadness,” and she fixed her gaze more intently on the foam-crested waves.
It was the first time she had seen the ocean, and her father's keen enjoyment watching her enraptured, wondering gaze, afforded Miss Vernon another source of pleasure, aside from the wide expanse of beauty, which stretched from shore to horizon.
The three, according to Mr. Wyman's promise, had come to enjoy the pleasures and beauties of the seaside for a few weeks, as well as to see the different phases of human character which were daily thronging there.