|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 95
Her heart, which had seemed to stop beating, was suffocating her
now, the way it raced along. Frederick did love her then--he must love
her, or why had he come? Something, perhaps her absence, had made him
turn to her, want her . . . and now the understanding she had made up
her mind to have with him would be quite--would be quite--easy--
Her thoughts wouldn't go on. Her mind stammered. She couldn't
think. She could only see and feel. She didn't know how it had
happened. It was a miracle. God could do miracles. God had done this
one. God could--God could--could--
Her mind stammered again, and broke off.
"Frederick--" she tried to say; but no sound came, or if it did
the crackling of the fire covered it up.
She must go nearer. She began to creep towards him--softly,
softly.
He did not move. He had not heard.
She stole nearer and nearer, and the fire crackled and he heard
nothing.
She stopped a moment, unable to breathe. She was afraid.
Suppose he--suppose he--oh, but he had come, he had come.
She went on again, close up to him, and her heart beat so loud
that she thought he must hear it. And couldn't he feel--didn't he
know--
"Frederick," she whispered, hardly able even to whisper, choked
by the beating of her heart.
He spun round on his heels.
"Rose!" he exclaimed, staring blankly.
But she did not see his stare, for her arms were round his neck,
and her cheek was against his, and she was murmuring, her lips on his
ear, "I knew you would come--in my very heart I always, always knew you
would come--"
Chapter 21
Now Frederick was not the man to hurt anything if he could help
it; besides, he was completely bewildered. Not only was his wife here
--here, of all places in the world--but she was clinging to him as she
had not clung for years, and murmuring love, and welcoming him. If she
welcomed him she must have been expecting him. Strange as this was, it
was the only thing in the situation which was evident--that, and the
softness of her cheek against his, and the long-forgotten sweet smell
of her.
Frederick was bewildered. But not being the man to hurt anything
if he could help it he too put his arms round her, and having put them
round her he also kissed her; and presently he was kissing her almost
as tenderly as she was kissing him; and presently he was kissing her
quite as tenderly; and again presently he was kissing her more
tenderly, and just as if he had never left off.
He was bewildered, but he still could kiss. It seemed curiously
natural to be doing it. It made him feel as if he were thirty again
instead of forty, and Rose were his Rose of twenty, the Rose he had so
much adored before she began to weigh what he did with her idea of
right, and the balance went against him, and she had turned strange,
and stony, and more and more shocked, and oh, so lamentable. He
couldn't get at her in those days at all; she wouldn't, she couldn't
understand. She kept on referring everything to what she called God's
eyes--in God's eyes it couldn't be right, it wasn't right. Her
miserable face--whatever her principles did for her they didn't make
her happy--her little miserable face, twisted with effort to be
patient, had been at last more than he could bear to see, and he had
kept away as much as he could. She never ought to have been the
daughter of a low-church rector--narrow devil; she was quite unfitted
to stand up against such an upbringing.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|