"
'The mysteries around me were thickening every moment. What did this
prattling woman mean about the dress in which she had at first seen
me? Was the dress in which she had first seen me so squalid that it
had affected her simple imagination? What had become of me after I
had sunk down on Raxton sands, and why was I left neglected by every
one? I knew you were ill after the landslip, but Mr. D'Arcy had just
told me that you had since been well enough to go to Wales and
afterwards to Japan.
'I put on the dress and soon followed her. When I reached the
tapestried room there was Mr. D'Arcy talking to her in a voice so
gentle, tender, and caressing, that it seemed impossible the rough
voice I had heard bellowing through the passage could have come from
the same mouth, and Mrs. Titwing was looking into his face with the
delighted smile of a child who was being forgiven by its father for
some trifling offence. As I stood and looked at them I said to
myself, "Truly I am in a land of wonders."'
VI
'Mr. D'Arcy and I,' said Winifred, 'went out of the house at the
back, walked across a roughly paved stable-yard, and passed through a
gate and entered a meadow.
Pages:
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722