|
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 20
Eight or nine months after he had left home the longing to return and see
what had happened became irresistible. Perhaps, after all----
Although this faint glimmer of a doubt was of his own making, and existed
only because he had forbidden Laura to tell him to the contrary, he
actually took some comfort in it. While he did not dare to put the
question to Laura, yet he allowed himself to dream that something might
possibly have happened to break off the match. He was far, indeed, from
formally consenting to entertain such a hope. He professed to himself
that he had no doubt that she was married and lost to him for ever. Had
anything happened to break off the match, Laura would certainly have lost
no time in telling him such good news. It was childishness to fancy aught
else. But no effort of the reason can quite close the windows of the
heart against hope, and, like a furtive ray of sunshine finding its way
through a closed shutter, the thought that, after all, she might be free
surreptitiously illumined the dark place in which he sat.
When the train stopped at Newville he slipped through the crowd at the
station with the briefest possible greetings to the acquaintances he saw,
and set out to gain his father's house by a back street.
On the way he met Harry Tuttle, and could not avoid stopping to exchange
a few words with him.. As they talked, he was in a miserable panic of
apprehension lest Harry should blurt out something about Madeline's being
married. He felt that he could only bear to hear it from Laura's lips.
Whenever the other opened his mouth to speak, a cold dew started out on
Henry's forehead for fear he was going to make some allusion to Madeline;
and when at last they separated without his having done so, there was
such weakness in his limbs as one feels who first walks after a sickness.
He saw his folly now, his madness, in allowing himself to dally with a
baseless hope, which, while never daring to own its own existence, had
yet so mingled its enervating poison with every vein that he had now no
strength left to endure the disappointment so certain and so near. At the
very gate of his father's house he paused. A powerful impulse seized him
to fly. It was not yet too late. Why had he come? He would go back to
Boston, and write Laura by the next mail, and adjure her to tell him
nothing. Some time he might bear to hear the truth, but not to-day, not
now; no, not now. What had he been thinking of to risk it? He would get
away where nobody could reach him to slay with a word this shadow of a
hope which had become such a necessity of life to him, as is opium to the
victim whose strength it has sapped and alone replaces. It was too late!
Laura, as she sat sewing by the window, had looked up and seen him, and
now as he came slowly up the walk she appeared at the door, full of
exclamations of surprise and pleasure. He went in, and they sat down.
"I thought I'd run out and see how you all were," he said, with a ghastly
smile.
"I'm so glad you did! Father was wondering only this morning if you were
never coming to see us again."
He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
"I thought I'd just run out and see you."
"Yes, I'm so glad you did!"
She did not show that she noticed his merely having said the same thing
over.
"Are you pretty well this spring?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm pretty well."
"Father was so much pleased about your patent. He's ever so proud of
you."
After a pause, during which Henry looked nervously from point to point
about the room, be said--
"Is he?"
"Yes, very, and so am I."
There was a long silence, and Laura took up her work-basket, and bent her
face over it, and seemed to have a good deal of trouble in finding some
article in it.
Suddenly he said, in a quick, spasmodic way--
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|