Was the old struggle of
years before coming back? Was it all to go over again? She was worn out.
She had been quiet in these--two years: what had gone before she never
looked back upon; but it made her thankful for even this stupid quiet.
And now, when she had planned her life, busy and useful and contented,
why need God have sent the old thought to taunt her? A wild, sickening
sense of what might have been struggled up: she thrust it down,--she had
kept it down all night; the old pain should not come back,--it should
not. She did not think of the love she had given up as a dream, as
verse-makers or sham people do; she knew it to be the reality of her
life. She cried for it even now, with all the fierce strength of her
nature; it was the best she knew; through it she came nearest to God.
Thinking of the day when she had given it up, she remembered it with a
vague consciousness of having fought a deadly struggle with her fate,
and that she had been conquered,--never had lived again. Let it be; she
could not bear the struggle again.
She went on dressing herself in a dreary, mechanical way. Once, a bitter
laugh came on her face, as she looked into the glass, and saw the dead,
dull eyes, and the wrinkle on her forehead.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220