And Lottie? She hardly knew what she thought. A wild dream of a desert island in tropic seas, with palms towering in the hot air and snow-white surf dashing on the coral shore, and herself and Cock Robin parted from all the world by endless leagues of ocean, flitted before her eyes. But that was impossible, absurd.
"FOR THE SPACE OF A LIGHTNING FLASH THEIR EYES MET."—Page 551.
He was laughing at her, no doubt—scorning her in his heart. Oh, why had she been so mad? Suppose a thunder-bolt were to fall from the blue sky and crush him into eternal silence as he lay at her feet pulling his little blades of grass? No! Lottie did not wish that: the thought was hideous. Yet had not such a wish had a momentary life as she stared at the hot blue sky? Was it written there, or wandering in the air, or uttered in the busy humming of the flies, so that as she gazed and listened she became conscious of its purport? Surely she never wished it. Why could not the gray rock against which she leaned totter and fall and bury her for ever, hiding her body from sight while her spirit fled from Percival? Yet even that was not enough: they might meet in some hereafter. Lottie longed for annihilation in that moment of despair.
This could not last. It passed, as the first faintness had done, and with an aching sense of shame and soreness (almost worse to bear because there was no exaltation in it) she came back to every-day life. She pushed her hair from her forehead and got up. "I suppose you are not going to stay here all day?" she said.
Percival stretched himself with an air of indolent carelessness: "No, I suppose not. Do you think duty calls us to go back at once?"
"It is getting late," was her curt reply; and he rose without another word.
She was grave and quiet: if anything, she was more self-possessed than he was, only she never looked at him. Perhaps if he could have made her understand what was in his heart when first he realized the meaning of her hasty words, she might have grasped the friendly hand he longed to hold out to her. But not now. Her face had hardened strangely, as if it were cut in stone. They went down the hill in silence, Percival appearing greatly interested in the landscape. As they crossed the level meadows Lottie looked round with a queer fancy that she might meet the other Lottie there, the girl who had crossed them an hour before. At the ditch Thorne held out his hand again. She half turned, looked straight into his eyes with a passionate glance of hatred, and sprang across, leaving him to follow.
He rejoined her as she reached the glade. While they had been on the hill the sun had sunk below the arching boughs, and half the beauty of the scene was gone. The noisy picnic party had unpacked their hampers, the turf was littered with paper and straw, and a driver stood in a central position, with his head thrown back, drinking beer from a bottle. Lottie went straight to the well and took another draught.