She soon recognized that
it was a love such as she had never known, unlike that for her mother
or sister or any one else, and it seemed to her that it could pass
away only with herself. It was not a vague sentiment, an indefinite
longing; it was the concentrated and imperious demand of her whole
being, which, denied, left little indeed, even were the whole world
hers. Yet such were the cruel conditions of her lot that she could
not speak of it even to one whose head had been pillowed on the same
mother's breast, and the thought that it might be discovered by
its object made her turn cold with dread. It was a holy thing--the
spontaneous product of an unperverted heart--and yet she must hide it
as if it were a crime.
Above all the trouble and turmoil of her thoughts, clear and definite
amid the chaos brought into her old quiet, languid life, was
the impulse--the necessity--to conceal that which had become the
mainspring of her existence. She had not the experience of one versed
in the ways of the world. How could others--how could he--be kept in
ignorance of that of which she was so painfully and vividly conscious?
Therefore, overwhelmed with dread and a sense of helplessness, she
yielded to her first impulse to hide, in order that what seemed
inseparable from herself might be concealed.
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