He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excitement to rage
uncontrolled. Stephen--it was only he who was the rival--only
Stephen! There was an anti-climax of absurdity which Knight,
wretched and conscience-stricken as he was, could not help
recognizing. Stephen was but a boy to him. Where the great grief
lay was in perceiving that the very innocence of Elfride in
reading her little fault as one so grave was what had fatally
misled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of coolness, asserted
that she had done no harm, the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs.
Jethway would have been inoperative. Why did he not make his
little docile girl tell more? If on that subject he had only
exercised the imperativeness customary with him on others, all
might have been revealed. It smote his heart like a switch when
he remembered how gently she had borne his scourging speeches,
never answering him with a single reproach, only assuring him of
her unbounded love.
Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot her fault.
He pictured with a vivid fancy those fair summer scenes with her.
He again saw her as at their first meeting, timid at speaking, yet
in her eagerness to be explanatory borne forward almost against
her will. How she would wait for him in green places, without
showing any of the ordinary womanly affectations of indifference!
How proud she was to be seen walking with him, bearing legibly in
her eyes the thought that he was the greatest genius in the world!
He formed a resolution; and after that could make pretence of
slumber no longer.
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