And then in a flash she looked on into her destiny. She thought of Manisty with a yearning, passionate heart, and yet with a kind of terror; of the rich, incalculable, undisciplined nature, with all its capricious and self-willed power, its fastidious demands, its practical weakness; the man's brilliance and his folly. She envisaged herself laden with the responsibility of being his wife; and it seemed to her beyond her strength. One moment he appeared to her so much above and beyond her that it was ridiculous he should stoop to her. The next she felt, as it were, the weight of his life upon her hands, and told herself that she could not bear it.
And then—and then—it was all very well, but if she had not come—if
Eleanor had never seen her—
Her head fell back into a mossy corner of the rock. Her eyes were blind with tears. From the hill came the rumble of an ox-waggon with the shouts of the drivers.
But another sound was nearer; the sound of a man's step upon the path. An exclamation—a leap—and before she could replace the hat she had taken off, or hide the traces of her tears, Manisty was beside her.
She sat up, staring at him in a bewildered silence. He too was silent,—only she saw the labouring of his breath.
But at last—
'I will not force myself upon you,' he said, in a voice haughty and self-restrained, that barely reached her ears. 'I will go at once if you bid me go.'
Then, as she still said nothing, he came nearer.
'You don't send me away?'
She made a little despairing gesture that said, 'I can't!'—but so sadly, that it did not encourage him.