E-Book admin

A step rustled among the distant last-year's leaves; there in the
shadowy wood, where she did not dream of concealing her thoughts, where
it seemed that all Nature shared her confidence, this step was like
a finger laid on the hidden sore. She paused, a glow rushed over her
frame, and her face grew hot with the convicting flush. Consternation,
bitter condemnation, shame, impetuous resolve, swept over her in one
torrent, and she saw that she had a secret which every one might touch,
and, touching, cause to sting. She hurried onward through the wood,
unconscious how rapidly or how far her heedless course extended. She
sprang across gaps at which she would another time have shuddered; she
clambered over fallen trees, penetrated thickets of tangled brier, and
followed up the shrunken beds of streams, till suddenly the wood grew
thin again, and she emerged upon an open space,--a long lawn, where the
grass grew rank and tall as in deserted graveyards, and on which the
afternoon sunshine lay with most dreary, desolate emphasis.


Pages:
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53