"
"Oh, yes you could," he faltered, laying his other hand over my
captive fingers, "but it is better not, my--Amey, at least--never
mind, I was forgetting--good-bye once again, and God bless you."
I could feel the touch of his trembling hands upon my own; I could
hear the sound of his agitated voice vibrating around me--and I might
never see him again!
I stood motionless for a few seconds in the open doorway where he had
just left me, feeling dazed and bewildered. His presence seemed to
linger a little with me after he had gone! Something in the very
atmosphere thrilled me as if his spirit had tarried to witness the
re-action that now took place, and had in tender pity shrouded me with
its consoling and protecting love.
I felt miserable and lonely, and creeping up the stairway again, I
returned to the refuge of my room, and threw myself wearily on my bed.
The twilight was beginning to fall, and with its advancing shadows
came trooping before my tearful eyes all the various episodes of my
chequered life.
To think that mine were what the world had ever called favoured
circumstances! I knew a hundred and one persons who looked upon me as
a happy, gifted girl, because, forsooth, I had had money and position
because I had education and social advantages! If this was what the
world called happiness, what then could its misery be?
The question tormented me, whether in the end it were better to follow
in the dazzling wake of this all-conquering worldliness, and by
crushing all my scruples arise to a new life of careless, thoughtless
gaiety, like Alice Merivale's; or whether the whispers of my better
impulse were the more salutary and satisfactory of the two, and bound
me in all conscience to an obedience and sanction of its precepts.
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