The old woman did not try to stop her. She
went outside.
Stephen Purceville stopped short in the saddle, and for the space of
several seconds, did not move or breathe. Then with an effort to
remain calm he dismounted, for that brief instant losing sight of her,
and telling himself it had not happened.
But when he moved forward around the horse, holding tight the reins as
if trying to keep a dream from fading, he felt again the strange and
forbidding shock of her presence.
The girl was beautiful, yes, but it was far more than that. There was
a depth to her, a genuine suffering..... But that was not the whole of
it, either. What did it mean? What did it mean?
He could not know that part of what he was feeling was an instinctive
sense of kin, the primal recognition of blood and family, a feeling
which jarred against, and at the same time increased, his awed
physical desire, for her.
And alongside this, no less tangible, was an almost spiritual
softening, and unconditional love. . .yes, love, for the beautiful and
innocent child before him.
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