He may have argued in semi conscious moments, that she would not scruple
to take again what she was capable of imagining she had given. Her
attentions, however, may have arisen from alarm at seeing him worse than
she had intended to make him, and desire to counteract what she had done.
For several days he was prostrate with extreme exhaustion. Necessarily, I
knew nothing of this; neither was I, notwithstanding my more than doubt
of his mother, in any immediate dread of what she might do. The cessation
of his visits could, of course, cause me no anxiety, seeing it was
thoroughly understood between us that we were not at liberty to meet.
CHAPTER XX.
A STRANGE VISIT.
On the fifth night after that on which he left me to walk home, I was
roused, about two o'clock, by a sharp sound as of sudden hail against my
window, ceasing as soon as it began. Wondering what it was, for hail it
could hardly be, I sprang from the bed, pulled aside the curtain, and
looked out. There was light enough in the moon to show me a man looking
up at the window, and love enough in my heart to tell me who he was. How
he knew the window mine, I have always forgotten to ask him. I would have
drawn back, for it vexed me sorely to think him too weak to hold to our
agreement, but the face I looked down upon was so ghastly and deathlike,
that I perceived at once his coming must have its justification.
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