She rated its devotion and generosity as highly as he
appreciated its extravagance and folly; and if he counted me a madman,
she was disposed to elevate me into a hero or a demi-god. The tones
and looks of a maiden in such a temper, however perfect her maidenly
reserve, would, I fancy, be very agreeable to men older than I was,
either in constitution or even in experience. I doubt whether any man
under fifty would have been more anxious than myself to cut short our
period of repose, broken as it was, when I refused to listen to her
tearful penitence and self-reproach, by occasional words and looks of
gratitude and admiration. I did, however, remember that it was
expedient to refasten the window, and re-attach the seals, before
departing. At the end of the hour's rest I allowed my charge and
myself, I had recovered more or less completely the nervous force
which had been for a while utterly exhausted, less by the effort than
by the terror that preceded it. I was neither surprised, nor perhaps
as much grieved as I should have been, to find that Eveena could
hardly walk; and felt to the full the value of those novel conditions
which enabled me to carry her the more easily in my arms, though much
oppressed even by so slight an effort in that thin air, to the place
where we had left our carriage--no inconsiderable distance by the path
we had to pursue.
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