Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid by Thomas Hardy
page 84 of 132 (63%)
him!' she murmured: and tapped four times.

The door was opened so quickly that the servant must have been
standing immediately inside. She thought him the man who had driven
them to the ball--the silent man who could be trusted. Without a
word he conducted her up the back staircase, and through a door at
the top, into a wide corridor. She was asked to wait in a little
dressing-room, where there was a fire, and an old metal-framed
looking-glass over the mantel-piece, in which she caught sight of
herself. A red spot burnt in each of her cheeks; the rest of her
face was pale; and her eyes were like diamonds of the first water.

Before she had been seated many minutes the man came back
noiselessly, and she followed him to a door covered by a red and
black curtain, which he lifted, and ushered her into a large chamber.
A screened light stood on a table before her, and on her left the
hangings of a tall dark four-post bedstead obstructed her view of the
centre of the room. Everything here seemed of such a magnificent
type to her eyes that she felt confused, diminished to half her
height, half her strength, half her prettiness. The man who had
conducted her retired at once, and some one came softly round the
angle of the bed-curtains. He held out his hand kindly--rather
patronisingly: it was the solicitor whom she knew by sight. This
gentleman led her forward, as if she had been a lamb rather than a
woman, till the occupant of the bed was revealed.

The Baron's eyes were closed, and her entry had been so noiseless
that he did not open them. The pallor of his face nearly matched the
white bed-linen, and his dark hair and heavy black moustache were
like dashes of ink on a clean page. Near him sat the parson and
DigitalOcean Referral Badge