His companion was at
first overawed rather than pleased. He led her from room to room,
saying frequently, "Do you like it? Will it do?"
"It frightens me!" murmured Lilian, at length. "How shall I manage
such a house?"
She was pale, and inclined to tearfulness, for the situation tired
her fortitude in a degree Denzil could not estimate. Fears which
were all but terrors, self-reproach which had the poignancy of
remorse, tormented her gentle, timid nature. For a week and more she
had not known unbroken sleep; dreams of fantastic misery awakened
her to worse distress in the calculating of her perils and conflict
with insidious doubts. At the dead hour before dawn, faiths of
childhood revived before her conscience, upbraiding, menacing. The
common rules of every-day honour spoke to her with stern reproval.
Denzil's arguments, when she tried to muster them in her defence,
answered with hollow, meaningless sound. Love alone would stead her;
she could but shut her eyes, and breathe, as if in prayer, the
declaration that her love was a sacred thing, cancelling verbal
untruth.
She changed her dress, and went down to luncheon. The large
dining-room seemed to oppress her insignificance; to eat was
impossible, and with difficulty she conversed before the servants.
Fortunately, Denzil was in his best spirits; he enjoyed the wintery
atmosphere, talked of skating on the ice which had known him as a
boy, laughed over an old story about a snowball with a stone in it
which had stunned him in one of the fights between town and Grammar
School.
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