"It
makes my head ache; what with Paw and Maw and the rest of them--I'm sick
of it all."
She turned away as Ford drew back coldly and let her hand fall from
his arm. She took a few steps forward, stopped, ran back to him again,
crushed his face and head in a close embrace, and then seemed to dip
like a bird into the tall bracken, and was gone.
The master stood for some moments chagrined and bewildered; it was
characteristic of his temperament that he had paid less heed to what
she told him than what he IMAGINED had passed between her mother and
herself. She was naturally jealous of the letters--he could forgive her
for that; she had doubtless been twitted about them, but he could easily
explain them to her parents--as he would have done to her. But he was
not such a fool as to elope with her at such a moment, without first
clearing his character--and knowing more of hers. And it was equally
characteristic of him that in his sense of injury he confounded her with
the writer of the letters--as sympathizing with his correspondent in her
estimate of his character, and was quite carried away with the belief
that he was equally wronged by both.
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