She was led
captive by emotion, but the cold rook of scruple remained. She had read
of women surrendering all for love, but she felt dismally that this
happy gift had been denied her. Criticism, a fierce, vulgar antagonism,
impervious to sentiment, not to be exorcised by generous impulse--such
was her unlovely inheritance.
As she leaned over a pool of clear brown water in a little burn, where
scented ferns dipped and great rocks of brake and heather shadowed, she
saw her face and figure mirrored in every colour and line. Her
extraordinary prettiness delighted her, and then she laughed at her own
vanity. A lady of the pools, with the dark eyes and red-gold hair of
the north, surely a creature of dawn and the blue sky, and born for no
dreary self-communings. She returned, with her eyes clear and something
like laughter in her heart. To-morrow she should see him, to-morrow!
It was the utter burning silence of midday, when the man who toils loses
the skin of his face, and the man who rests tastes the joys of deep
leisure. The blue, airless sky, the level hilltops, the straight lines
of glen, the treeless horizon of the moors--no sharp ridge or cliff
caught the tired eye, only an even, sleep-lulled harmony. Five very
hungry, thirsty, and wearied men lay in the shadow above the Pool of
Ness, and prayed heaven for luncheon.
Lewis and George, Wratislaw and Arthur Mordaunt were there, and Doctor
Gracey, who loved a day on the hills.
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