Yet he was painfully and acutely conscious of her presence. She,
too, seemed to be clouded and sad. He found himself unable to talk
to her unconstrainedly. He could only dumbly watch her; she
appeared to avert her eyes from him; and yet he drew from these
meetings an infinite series of pictures, which were as if engraved
upon his brain. She became for him in these days like a lily
drooping in a shadowed place and in a thunderous air; something
fading away mutely and sorrowfully, like the old figure of Mariana
in the Grange, looking wearily through listless hours for something
which had once beckoned to her with a radiant gesture, but which
did not return. There were brighter hours, when in the hot July
days a little peace fell on him, a little sense of the fragrance
and beauty of the world. He took to long and solitary walks on the
down in search of bodily fatigue. There was one day in particular
which he long remembered, when he had gone up to the camp, and sate
in the shade of the thicket on the crisp turf, looking out over the
valley, unutterably quiet and peaceful in the hot air. The trees
were breathlessly still; the hamlet roofs peeped out above the
orchards, the hot air quivered on the down. There were little
figures far below moving about the fields. It all looked lost in a
sweetness of serene repose; and the thoughts that had troubled him
rose with a bitter poignancy, that was almost a physical pain. The
contrast between the high summer, the rich life of herb and tree,
and his own weary and arid thoughts, fell on him like a flash.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174