“What a weak fool I am!” she thought. “If I had any strength of character, I should be, I suppose, glad to have found it out in time.”
For bitterly as she was suffering, she was spared the misery of any wavering as to the necessity of her decision. It was done, once for all, done! But other considerations could not be altogether stifled, and Philippa was still very young.
“It is so disappointing,” she said, half audibly, “in smaller ways, too. Poor Evey, I know how she has been wishing for it, and, I am afraid, mamma! I am only thankful not to have let myself go further, even in fancy. I shall soon be able to pull myself together,” and a sort of wave of courage and even relief seemed to sweep over her, to her own surprise.
How was it that she was not more crushed? After all, she asked herself in the clearer light of her present vision, was the “disillusionment” so entirely unexpected? Had she, unconsciously, blinded herself, and refused to admit the possibility of the “something wanting” in Bernard Gresham’s character? If not, whence had arisen her constant self-questionings as to how her confession would be received? Why the doubts that were there all the time? often as she had repeated to herself that after all she had done nothing wrong, nothing really calling for shame or self-abasement.
But her mind was growing too wearied and confused to think out this new suggestion. She shivered slightly.
“Oh, how I wish I were at home,” she thought, “and could tell mamma everything! She would understand better than I do myself. It is just as if a door had shut in front of me and all was blank!”
It was really growing cold, for the evenings were still chilly, with the chilliness of early spring, and the sun had gone down some time before. Philippa got up. How long she had sat there she could not tell, and confidently as she had spoken of knowing her way to Palden, she was really slightly at a loss, though familiar with the general direction she should keep to. She retraced her steps for some little distance till she came to a point whence another path should lead to the high-road. She came upon this side-path more quickly than she had expected, but turned into it without misgiving, and satisfied that she would come out at the right place, she walked on, allowing her thoughts to re-absorb her. In spite of herself her imagination persisted in re-enacting, mistily yet painfully, the events of the afternoon, till she almost felt that she could bear it no longer. But there came a diversion. Suddenly it struck her that the distance to the high-road was strangely long. She stopped short and looked about her. There was no sign of the wood coming to an end; on the contrary, the trees seemed thicker than before.
“I must have taken the wrong path,” she thought, drearily. “Indeed, this is scarcely like a path at all. I had better go back again, I suppose; I may come across the other.”
She turned and went on, looking about her attentively. Some twenty yards or so farther back, the footpath she was on joined another.
“I must have gone wrong here,” she said, and, though with some little hesitation, she turned again.