In her desperate effort to conceal an unsought
love she had sought the nearest covert, and the stains Sibley had
left upon her were no more hers than if he had been a blackened
wall. After all her woman's soul had come to her as in the old
and simple times when even water nymphs had hearts, and love was
still the mightiest force in the universe.
His feeling now was far too deep for his former half-frenzied
excitement. There was not a trace of exultation in his manner,
and there was indeed no ground for rapture. Only the knowledge
that he carried away her respect, and that he was going to the
performance of what he believed a sacred duty, kept him from despair.
He did not blame himself as bitterly as might have been supposed
that he had not discovered her secret earlier, and it increased
his admiration for her, if that were possible, that she had so
carefully maintained her maidenly reserve. A conceited man, or
at least a man whose soul was infested with the meanest kind of
conceit--that of imagining that the woman who gives him a friendly
word or smile is disposed to throw herself into his arms--would no
doubt have surmised her secret before; but although Van Berg was
intensely proud, as we have seen, and had been rendered self-complacent
and self-confident by the circumstances of his lot, he had none of
this contemptible vanity.
Pages:
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690