She tried desperately, I say, to clutch the far,
uncertain hope at the end, to make happiness out of it, to give
it to her silent gnawing heart to feed on. She thrust out of
sight all possible life that might have called her true self into
being, and clung to this present shallow duty and shallow reward.
Pitiful and vain so to cling! It is the way of women. As if any
human soul could bury that which might have been, in that which
is!
The Doctor, peering into her thought with sharp, suspicious eyes,
heeded the transient flush of enthusiasm but little. Even the
pleasant cheery talk that pleased her father so was but
surface-deep, he knew. The woman he must conquer for his great
end lay beneath, dark and cold. It was only for that end he
cared for her. Through what cold depths of solitude her soul
breathed faintly mattered little. Yet an idle fancy touched
him, what a triumph the man had gained, whoever he might be, who
had held the master-key to a nature so rare as this, who had the
kingly power in his hand to break its silence into electric
shivers of laughter and tears,--terrible subtile pain, or joy as
terrible. Did he hold the power still? He wondered. Meanwhile
she sat there, unread.
CHAPTER II.
The evening came on, slow and cold. Life itself, the Doctor
thought, impatiently, was cool and tardy here among the hills.
Even he fell into the tranquil tone, and chafed under it.
Nowhere else did the evening gray and sombre into the mysterious
night impalpably as here.
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