'How could Dr. Arthur be mistaken in what he says he saw?'
'Is it true?' came with an astonished, fiery glance of the gray eyes.
She draw herself up a little, stepping back.
'It is truesince he says sothat he saw me among the rest.'
It is not often that we see a man lose colour from intense feeling. Wych Hazel's eyes saw it now. Rollo stood still before her, quite still, for a space of time that neither could measure, growing very pale, while at the same time the lines on lip and brow gradually took a firmer and firmer set. Motionless as an iron statue, and assuming more and more the fixedness of one, he stood, while minute after minute slipped by. To Wych Hazel the time probably seemed measureless and endless; while to Rollo, in the struggle and tumultuous whirl of feeling, it was only a single sharp point of existence. He stood with his eyes cast down; and without raising them, without uttering another syllable, for which I suppose he had not self-control, at last he bowed gravely and low, and turned away. In another minute, the bay horse and his rider went past the door and were gone.
On her part, Wych Hazel had stood waiting, expecting him to speak, scanning his face with eager scrutiny. Then, with a grave shadow of disappointment upon her own, looked down again, nerving herself for the words of anger which must follow such a look. But when he turned, she raised her head quickly and looked after him, following with her eyes as long as eyes could follow, listening as long as ears could hearthen drew her veil over her face and went down and entered the carriage. Answering, somehow, Mr. Falkirk's words; and, somehow, taking her part in Mrs. Powder's festivities.
O the interminable length of those bridges from life-point to life- point, over which we must sometimes pass at a foot-pace! Is anything more intolerable than the monotonous tramp, tramp, of the meaningless steps? Is anything more sickening than the easy sway of the bridge, which seems to make the whole world reel, while in truth it is only ourselves? If Wych Hazel had been asked afterwards who was at Mrs. Powder's, and what was said, and when she came home, she could not have told a word. She came home with a scarlet spot on either cheek, burning brighter and brighter. They were very beautiful, people said.
But to-morrow he would come, when his anger was cooled down. What if he did?for pain this time had used a trident. He had doubted her. Then he could doubt her! Then, he never could trust. And what was anything after that? Not her discretion merely, as before; not her obedience; but her word! Well, he would come, and she would tell himthat would be one little shred of comfort, at least. But he had looked at her so! and thenhe had turned his eyes away. And no matter what she told him, or what he might believe then, that look had gone down to the depths of her heart. He had doubted her!
Well, the night wore away, somehow, between bitter waking pain and snatches of exhausted sleep; and then the morningas mornings sometimes willseemed to speak comfort. He would come, and she would tell him.
But he did not come. And one day followed another, and still there came not even a message; and Wych Hazel waited. No one guessed how little she eat in those days, no one guessed how little she slept; the one thing she knew of herself was, that no earthly temptation could have made her leave the house for five minutes. She rose up earlyfor he might come then; and she sat up till impossible hours, lest they might be the only ones left free by business. But under all this watching, the keen, three-pointed pain never relaxed its pressure. What was the use of anything, after that? and yet she longed for his coming with an intensity that could not be measured.
Earlier in the year,certainly before his declaration,she would not have waited so long, without taking the matter into her own hands and writing. But the twenty-fifth was close at hand; how could she do anything to bring herself to his notice, or call him to her side? And he was almost a stranger now; she had seen him but once since near a year ago. And on the twenty-fifth, at least, she must see him. Alas! what could she say to him then? unless that. But she could not think of it now. Her mind clasped hold of just one thought: he will come then. 'He wants me to understand how angry he is,' thought Hazel to herself as the tenth day crept slowly by. 'Does he think I am made of iron, like himself, I wonder?'