"Oh, perhaps," she thought, "I have been too hasty.
There may be some words of explanation from him on the other side
of the page, to which, in my blind anguish, I never turned. I
will go and find it."
She lifted herself heavily and stiffly from the crushed heather.
She stood dizzy and confused with her change of posture; and was
so unable to move at first, that her walk was but slow and
tottering; but, by-and-by, she was tasked and goaded by thoughts
which forced her into rapid motion, as if, by it, she could
escape from her agony. She came down on the level ground, just as
many gay or peaceful groups were sauntering leisurely home with
hearts at ease; with low laughs and quiet smiles, and many an
exclamation at the beauty of the summer evening.
Ever since her adventure with the little boy and his sister, Ruth
had habitually avoided encountering these happy--innocents, may I
call them?--these happy fellow-mortals! And even now, the habit
grounded on sorrowful humiliation had power over her; she paused,
and then, on looking back, she saw more people who had come into
the main road from a side-path. She opened a gate into a
pasture-field, and crept up to the hedge-bank until all should
have passed by, and she could steal into the inn unseen. She sat
down on the sloping turf by the roots of an old hawthorn tree
which grew in the hedge; she was still tearless, with hot burning
eyes; she heard the merry walkers pass by; she heard the
footsteps of the village children as they ran along to their
evening play; she saw the small black cows come into the fields
after being milked; and life seemed yet abroad.
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