"
When night came Joan slept within the mystic circumference of the
glen-ader; and that she derived a growing measure of mental satisfaction
from its embrace is unquestionable.
CHAPTER FIVE
"COME TO ME!"
A space of time six weeks in duration may be hastily dismissed as producing
no alteration in Joan's method of thought and life. It swept her swiftly
through shortening days and the last of the summer weather to the climax of
her fortunes. As the season waned she kept nearer home, going not much
further than Tremathick Cross on the St. Just road or to that relic already
mentioned as lying outside Sancreed churchyard. These, in time, she
associated as much with her child as with herself. The baby had now taken
its natural place in her mind, and she prayed every day that it might
presently forgive her for bringing it into the world at all. Misty-eyed,
not unhappy, with her beauty still a startling fact, Joan mused away long
hours at the feet of her granite friends through the waning splendors of
many an autumn noon. Then, within the brief space of two weeks, a period of
weather almost unexampled in the memory of the oldest agriculturists drew
to its close.
That mighty rains must surely come all knew, but none foretold their
tremendous volume or foresaw the havoc, ruin and destruction to follow upon
their outpouring. Meantime, with late September, the leaves began to hustle
early to earth under great winds.
Pages:
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367