All day long, in her waking intervals, Waveney was keeping one thought at bay. Deep down in her inner consciousness, she was aware of some strange and secret joy which she dare not face, but which seemed to distil some rare and precious aroma.
"Was it a dream?" she was continually asking herself; but the answer to this perpetually eluded her. All the events of the previous evening had resolved themselves into a sort of painful vision. The dark, sullen river; her restless anguish; those confused moments when, giddy and sick, she had sat on the bench with Mr. Chaytor beside her; the walk through the lighted streets; and then the warmth and comfort of that friendly refuge.
It was not until late in the afternoon, when the wintry dusk had closed in, and the Pansy Room was bright with firelight, that the power of consecutive thought and memory seemed to return to Waveney, when some sudden remembrance made her bury her face in the pillow. What were those words that, in spite of her weakness, seemed stamped on her heart and brain?
"Trouble? When there is nothing on earth that I would not do for you, my darling!" No, it was no dream. She had actually heard them. He had really said them. Would she ever forget his voice, or the smile that had seemed to steal into her weary heart like a benediction? Then, for a few blissful moments, Mollie was forgotten in the overwhelming consciousness that the man she most admired and revered, who seemed so far above her in wisdom and intellect, should stoop from his great height to care for her.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A QUIXOTIC RESOLUTION.
"Thine were the weak, slight hands
That might have taken this strong soul, and bent
Its stubborn substance to thy soft intent."
Watson.
For the first time in his life Thorold Chaytor's conscience felt ill at ease; and, though his nature was by no means introspective or over-scrupulous, he tormented himself and suffered keen twinges of remorse, for what he called his unpardonable want of self-control.