The time that had seemed so very distant had come indeed;
instead of years, a week had scarcely passed, and it was not by letting
a flower fall in his path that she had told him her love, as she had
meant to do. She had done much more. She had let him take her hand and
press it to his heart, and she would have left it there if Nella had not
passed the window; she had wished him to take it, she had let it hang by
her side in the hope that he would be bold enough to do so, and she had
thrilled with delight at his touch; she had drawn back her hand when the
woman came, and she had put on a look of innocent indifference that
would have deceived one of the Council's own spies. Could any language
have been more plain?
It was very strange, she thought, that she should all at once have gone
so far, that she should have felt such undreamt joy at the moment and
then, when it was hers, a part of her life which nothing could ever undo
nor take from her, it was stranger still that the remembrance of this
wonderful joy should make her suddenly sad and thoughtful, that she
should lie awake at night, wishing that it had never been, and
tormenting herself with the idea that she had done an almost
irretrievable wrong. At the very moment when the coming day was breaking
upon her heart's twilight, a wall of darkness arose between her and the
future.
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