With the first flush of healthy interest she had experienced for a long time, she watched him till he was all but out of sight, then shut her eyes that she might not see him vanish, for fear of bad luck; a superstition she had not practised since she was a child. When he had gone, she found herself with a happy impression of him in her mind, an impression of quiet dignity, and of strength in repose. "A man to be trusted," she thought; "true and tender, a perfect knight." The flash of interest or recognition that came into his countenance when he saw her haunted her; she recalled the colour of his blue eyes, noted the contrast they were to his dark hair and clear dark skin, and was pleased. In the afternoon she sat and sewed, and smiled to herself over her work with an easy mind. Her restlessness had subsided; Dan scarcely cost her a thought; the tension was released and a reaction had set in; but, at the time, she herself was quite unaware of it. All she felt was a good appetite for her tea.
"Minna," she said to the parlour-maid, "bring me a big cup of tea and a good plate of buttered toast. I'm famishing."
"That's good news, ma'am," Minna answered, for it was long since Beth had had any appetite at all.
The next day Beth stood at the window again, but without intention. She was thinking of her knight of the noble mien, however, and at about the same hour as on the day before, he came again, riding slowly down the road; and again he looked at Beth with a flash of interest in his face, to which she involuntarily responded. When he was out of sight she opened the window, and perceived to her glad surprise that the air was balmy, and on all things the sun shone, shedding joy.
The horrid spell was broken.
CHAPTER XLVI
"A bowshot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves."
The words made music in Beth's heart as she dressed next morning, and, instead of the torment of mind from which she had suffered for so long, there was a great glad glow. Dan went and came as usual, but neither his presence nor absence disturbed her. She had recovered her self-possession, her own point of view, and he and his habits resumed their accustomed place in her estimation. During that dreadful phase she had seen with Dan's suspicious eyes, and seen evil only, but had not acquired his interest and pleasure in it; on the contrary, her own tendency to be grieved by it had been intensified. Now, however, she had recovered herself, her sense of proportion had been restored, and she balanced the good against the evil once more, and rejoiced to find that the weight of good was even greater than she had hitherto supposed.
But although the spell had been broken in a moment, her right mind was not permanently restored all at once. It was only gradually, as the tide goes out after a tempest, and leaves the storm-beaten coast in peace, that the worry in her head subsided. She had lapse after lapse. She would lie awake at night, a prey to horrible thoughts, or start up in the early morning with her mind all turgid with suspicions which goaded her to rush out and act, act—see for herself—do something. But the great difference now was that, although she was still seized upon by the evil, it no longer had the same power to grieve her. She had valiantly resisted it from the moment she recognised its nature, but now she not only resisted it, she conquered it, and found relief. When her imagination insisted on pursuing Dan to his haunts, she deliberately and successfully turned her attention to other things. She turned her attention to the friends she loved and trusted, she dwelt on the kindness they had shown her, she forced herself to sit down and write to them, and she would rise from this happy task with her reason restored, the mere expression of affection having sufficed to exorcise the devils of rage and hate.