Aylwin by Theodore Watts-Dunton
page 119 of 651 (18%)
page 119 of 651 (18%)
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at Raxton.'
'No,' said she, 'I'm quite sure I couldn't. I should have to come in the winds and play round you on the sands. I should have to peep over the clouds and watch you. I should have to follow you about wherever you went. I should have to beset you till you said, "Bother Winnie! I wish she'd keep in heaven."' I saw, however, that the owl's shadow had disturbed her, and I lifted the latch of the cottage door for her. We were met by a noise so loud that it might have come from a trombone. 'Why, what on earth is that?' I said. I could see the look of shame break over Winifred's features as she said, 'Father.' Yes, it was the snoring of Wynne in a drunken sleep: it filled the entire cottage. The poor girl seemed to feel that that brutal noise had, somehow, coarsened _her_, and she actually half shrank from me as I gave her a kiss and left her. Wondering how I should at such an hour get into the house without disturbing my mother and the servants, I passed along that same road where, as a crippled child, I had hobbled on that, bright afternoon when love was first revealed to me. Ah, what a different love was this which was firing my blood, and making dizzy my brain! That child-love had softened my heart in its deep distress, and widened my soul. This new and mighty passion in whose grasp I was, this irresistible power that had seized and possessed my entire being, wrought my soul in quite a different sort, concentrating and narrowing my horizon till the human life outside the circle of our |
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