The soft and
fiery, the subtle and harmonious, seemed to leave him cold. He had
no particular love for all those simple natural things, birds, bees,
animals, trees, and flowers, that seemed to her precious and divine.
Though it was not yet four o'clock she was already beginning to
droop like a flower that wants water. But she sat down to her piano,
resolutely, till tea came; playing on and on with a spirit only half
present, the other half of her wandering in the Town, seeking for
Miltoun. After tea she tried first to read, then to sew, and once more
came back to her piano. The clock struck six; and as if its last stroke
had broken the armour of her mind, she felt suddenly sick with anxiety.
Why was he so long? But she kept on playing, turning the pages without
taking in the notes, haunted by the idea that he might again have fallen
ill. Should she telegraph? What good, when she could not tell in the
least where he might be? And all the unreasoning terror of not knowing
where the loved one is, beset her so that her hands, in sheer numbness,
dropped from the keys. Unable to keep still, now, she wandered from
window to door, out into the little hall, and back hastily to the
window. Over her anxiety brooded a darkness, compounded of vague growing
fears. What if it were the end? What if he had chosen this as the most
merciful way of leaving her? But surely he would never be so cruel!
Close on the heels of this too painful thought came reaction; and she
told herself that she was a fool.
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