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Grapes And Thorns. Chapter XII. A Taper Lighted, And A Taper Blown Out.
By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”
Our two travellers did not know how far removed they were from the common ways of life till they were again on land. The strangeness of a sea-voyage had made their own strangeness less apparent; but when they saw homes, and all the daily interests of life moving on as once they had moved for them, familiar things assumed in their eyes a certain grotesque appearance, and they scarcely knew themselves or each other. How hollow sounded the careless laugh they heard, how terrible the jest! How impossible they found it to comprehend how business and pleasure could absorb men's souls! To them this gay and busy world was wandering recklessly on the brink of an unseen precipice which they alone could see.
Annette Gerald had adopted her husband's inner, as well as his outer, life—had, as it were, stepped inside his guilt, and wrapped it round her, and his world was henceforth her world. With his eyes she saw a leafless and flowerless England sweep behind her as they sped onward to London; and she shrank, even as he did, when the thick fog of the great city took them in and shut them as if in walls of stone.
“We cannot stay here,” her husband said. “I should lose my senses in twenty-four hours. This fog makes me feel like a smoky house. Are you too tired to go on? Do let us have sunshine, at least.”
No, she was never too tired to go on with him.
They had a compartment to themselves, and, weary as they were, started on again, a little relieved in mind. No one had accosted them in either of the great cities, and there seemed to be no immediate danger. Overcome with fatigue and loss of sleep, they both leaned back in the soft cushions, and slept soundly till some sound or a slackening of their speed awakened them.
The London fog was far away, and they found themselves passing slowly and smoothly through a cloud-world of blue and silver. There was no land in sight. The window at one side showed them a cliff that might be alabaster, and might be an illuminated cloud. At the other side, a deep-blue sea, foam-flecked, and a deep blue sky half-veiled in silvery mists, were so entangled with each other that only where the full moon rode could they be sure that it was sky, and only where the wave ran up and curled over in foam almost within their reach could they be sure that it was water.