Knight more!'
Yes: she would save herself from a man not fit for her--in spite
of vows. She would obey her father, and have no more to do with
Stephen Smith. Thus the fickle resolve showed signs of assuming
the complexion of a virtue.
The following days were passed without any definite avowal from
Knight's lips. Such solitary walks and scenes as that witnessed
by Smith in the summer-house were frequent, but he courted her so
intangibly that to any but such a delicate perception as Elfride's
it would have appeared no courtship at all. The time now really
began to be sweet with her. She dismissed the sense of sin in her
past actions, and was automatic in the intoxication of the moment.
The fact that Knight made no actual declaration was no drawback.
Knowing since the betrayal of his sentiments that love for her
really existed, she preferred it for the present in its form of
essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the grosser medium of
words. Their feelings having been forced to a rather premature
demonstration, a reaction was indulged in by both.
But no sooner had she got rid of her troubled conscience on the
matter of faithlessness than a new anxiety confronted her. It was
lest Knight should accidentally meet Stephen in the parish, and
that herself should be the subject of discourse.
Elfride, learning Knight more thoroughly, perceived that, far
from having a notion of Stephen's precedence, he had no idea that
she had ever been wooed before by anybody.
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