“George!” she cried, “oh, but I’ve been bad to you!”
* * * * * *
It was some time after that they came down the lane again together, her hand, like a little child’s, lying in his. The late sunset had faded, and its remains were just dying along the edge of the world. They said little, the man of few words and the woman of wounded heart. It was the silence of knowledge, profound, irrevocable, lying miles and miles from the door of their lips; of trust, of sorrow, of coming joy. For her the joy was but faintly showing itself through the veil, for him it stood in the path.
If his Eve had caused him to be expelled from Paradise by one door, she had let him in again at another.
[CHAPTER XXXII
A DARK LANTERN]
ALTHOUGH Isoline had now nothing left to fear from the importunities of her lover and was beginning to see a good broad streak of daylight through the entanglements which beset her path, the reply that her uncle’s letter brought from Mrs. Johnson in Hereford was a decided relief. She was to come as soon as she liked and to be prepared for a long stay. The widow had an only daughter, just returned for good from the respectable shelter of a Bath seminary, and she looked upon Isoline’s proposal as a piece of real good fortune. She was averse to effort of most kinds, and had been a little fluttered at the prospect of her dove’s return and the exertions into which it might lead her. A companion who would amuse and occupy the young lady was so good an extinguisher to the flame of her dilemma that she threw a perfect flood of cordiality into her answer, and begged the coming guest to consider herself bound for six weeks at the very least. She thought Isoline a most desirable intimate for her Emily, having been struck by the decorous elegance of her manners and the tone of delicate orthodoxy which surrounded her.
Miss Ridgeway turned her back upon Crishowell with many feelings of pleasure. There was not one thing in all the place which she really regretted leaving, and even Rhys Walters, who cost her what more nearly approached a regret than anything else, went comfortably out of her head; on her return, happily a good way off, he might again serve to lend a little zest to an otherwise depressing life. That was his use in her mind.
In Hereford her time and attention were soon taken up by more important things, musical evenings, shoppings, and various little social assemblies at which she became the centre of much admiration to the young gentlemen of Hereford society. Indeed, one admirer, a pale youth connected with a local bank, sent her a copy of verses, beginning—