I would like to have
her for a sister, that I might shield her and counsel her, and
spend half my income on old threadlace and camel's-hair shawls. (We
are off the island now.) If such were not my feeling, there would
still be an obstacle to my loving Miss Daw. A greater misfortune
could scarcely befall me than to love her. Flemming, I am about to
make a revelation that will astonish you. I may be all wrong in my
premises and consequently in my conclusions; but you shall judge.
That night when I returned to my room after the croquet party at
the Daw's, and was thinking over the trivial events of the evening,
I was suddenly impressed by the air of eager attention with which
Miss Daw had followed my account of your accident. I think I
mentioned this to you. Well, the next morning, as I went to mail my
letter, I overtook Miss Daw on the road to Rye, where the post-
office is, and accompanied her thither and back, an hour's walk.
The conversation again turned to you, and again I remarked that
inexplicable look of interest which had lighted up her face the
previous evening. Since then, I have seen Miss Daw perhaps ten
times, perhaps oftener, and on each occasion I found that when I
was not speaking of you, or your sister, or some person or place
associated with you, I was not holding her attention. She would be
absent-minded, her eyes would wander away from me to the sea, or to
some distant object in the landscape; her fingers would play with
the leaves of a book in a way that convinced me she was not
listening.
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