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CHAPTER XX
GONE!—BUT HOW?
I Rose and looked around me, dazed at heart. For a moment I could not see her : she was gone, and loneliness had returned like the cloud after the rain ! She whom I brought back from the brink of the grave, had fled from me, and left me with desolation ! I dared not one moment remain thus hideously alone. Had I indeed done her a wrong? I must devote my life to sharing the burden I had compelled her to resume !
I descried her walking swiftly over the grass, away from the river, took one plunge for a farewell restorative, and set out to follow her. The last visit of the white leech, and the blow of the woman, had enfeebled me, but already ruy strength was reviving, and I kept her in sight without difficulty.
' Is this, then, the end ?' I said as I went, and my heart brooded a sad song. Her angry, hating eyes haunted me. I could understand her resentment at my having forced life upon her, but how had I farther injured her ? Why should she loathe me ? Could modesty itself be indignant with true service? How should the proudest woman, conscious of my every action, cherish against me the least sense of disgracing wrong ? How reverently had I not touched her! As a father his motherless child, I had borne and |
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