He was awakened from his
reverie by Castle Boterel clock.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN .
One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had
been sharp pleasure to hear, and what a difference to him!
He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of
entrance, and went down the hill. Slowly he drew near the gate of
her house. This he softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive
to the door. Here he paused for several minutes.
At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly
voice came out to his ears through an open window behind the
corner of the house. This was responded to by a clear soft laugh.
It was the laugh of Elfride.
Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He
retreated as he had come. There are disappointments which wring
us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear
to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of
the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered
as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a one was Stephen's now:
the crowning aureola of the dream had been the meeting here by
stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he
had turned away, the disappointment would have been recognizable
still.
When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had
arrived in his absence. Believing it to contain some reason for
her non-appearance, yet unable to imagine one that could justify
her, he hastily tore open the envelope.
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