May
hers be so that brought trouble upon me!'
'Silence!' said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite of himself
'She would harm nobody wilfully, never would she! How do you come
here?'
'I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to learn if she were
not one of them. Can I help disliking her if I think of the past?
Can I help watching her if I remember my boy? Can I help ill-
wishing her if I well-wish him?'
The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, and was
enveloped by the shadows of the field.
Stephen had heard that Mrs. Jethway, since the death of her son,
had become a crazed, forlorn woman; and bestowing a pitying
thought upon her, he dismissed her fancied wrongs from his mind,
but not her condemnation of Elfride's faithlessness. That entered
into and mingled with the sensations his new experience had
begotten. The tale told by the little scene he had witnessed ran
parallel with the unhappy woman's opinion, which, however baseless
it might have been antecedently, had become true enough as
regarded himself.
A slow weight of despair, as distinct from a violent paroxysm as
starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and wrung him body and
soul. The discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for
throughout his anxiety of the last few days since the night in the
churchyard, he had been inclined to construe the uncertainty
unfavourably for himself. His hopes for the best had been but
periodic interruptions to a chronic fear of the worst.
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