Adeline Sergeant

“ Janetta hesitated. "Margaret is my dear friend, and I love her. But I am older—perhaps I can't feel exactly in that way about her now."
"You talk as if you were a sexagenarian," said Wyvis, exploding into genial laughter. He looked suddenly brighter and younger, as if his outburst of emotion had wonderfully relieved him. "I am much older than you, and yet I see her in the same light. What else is there to say about her? She is perfect—there is not much to discuss in perfection." ”

“ Hubert stood aghast. Was this trembling woman the cold imperturbable sister whom he had known of old? He had seldom seen Florence shed tears, even in her youthful days. Was it the consciousness of her past guilt that had changed her thus?
He reflected that, according to all tradition, a woman's nature was more sensitive and delicate than that of a man. Florence was weighed down perhaps by that sense of remorse which he had well-nigh forgotten. He had, as he had said, resolved to put the past behind him and to lead a new life. ”

“ The lips did not meet, but Alan's face was very close to hers. When the pause had lasted so long that Lettice's eyelids drooped, and the spell of the look was broken, he spoke again.
"Why should I go away? Why should the phantom of a dead past divide us? We belong to one another, you and I. Think of what life might mean to us, side by side, hand in hand, working, striving together, you the stronger, giving me some of your strength, I ready to give you the love you need—the love you have craved for—the love that you have won! Lettice, Lettice, neither God nor man can divide us now!" ”

“ She leaned back in her chair, with heightened color and brightening eyes: her breath came a little more quickly than usual, as if her pulses were quickened. There is nothing so catching as emotion. Oliver's sluggish pulses began to stir at the sight of her. That soft and tender face seemed more beautiful to him than the sparkle and vivacity of Ethel Kenyon's. If it had not been for Ethel's twenty thousand pounds, he did not know but what he would have preferred Lesley. Rosy had said that Lesley would suit him best. ”

“ The veins on his forehead were swollen, his lips were nearly bitten through, his eyes were strained with that passionate longing for deliverance to which he seldom gave vent in words. If this vessel brought no succour, Brian trembled to think of the force of the reaction from that intense desire. For himself, Brian had little care: he was astonished to find how slightly the suspense of waiting told upon him, except for others' sake. He had no prospects: no future. But Percival had everything in the world that heart could wish for: home, happiness, success. ”

“ Janetta was thinner and paler than in days of yore, and yet there was a peaceful expression upon her face which gave it an added charm. She had discarded her black gowns and wore a pretty dark red dress which suited her admirably. There was a look of thought and feeling in her dark eyes, a sweetness in her smile, which would always redeem her appearance from the old charge of insignificance that used to be brought against it. Small and slight she might be, but never a woman to be overlooked. ”

“ What was even more remarkable in Cynthia than the beauty of her face was the perfection of every line and contour of her body; the supple, swelling, lissom figure was full of absolute grace; she could not have been awkward if she had tried. It was the characteristic that chiefly earned her the admiration of men; women looked more often at her face.
"Are you alone?" said Hubert, smiling, and holding out both his hands, in which she impulsively placed her own. ”

“ There was grandeur in the sweep of the mountain-lines; there was a wonderful stillness in the sunny air, broken only by the buzz of a wandering bee and the trickle of the stream; there was the great arch of blue above the moor, and the magical tints of purple and red that blossoming heather always brings out upon the mountain-sides. The bareness of the land was forgotten in its wealth of colouring; and perhaps Brian and Elizabeth were not wrong when they said to each other that Italy had never shown them a scene that was half so fair. ”

“ The art of living, if you are afraid of the passing of your secret from the few who know to the many who welcome a new scandal, is to go on walking with the light and confident step of youth, never so much as quailing in your own mind at the thought that the ground may crumble beneath you—that you may go home some fine day, or to your club, or to Lady Jane's five o'clock tea, and be confronted by the grinning skeleton on whom you had so carefully turned your keys and shot your bolts. ”

“ You, you and no other, are the woman that I love; and, beside you, Ethel is nothing to me at all."
"You might at least remember your duty to her," said Lesley, with severity. "You have won her heart, and you are about to vow to make her happy. I cannot understand how you can be so false to her."
"If I am false to her," said Oliver, pleadingly, "I am true to the dictates of my own heart. Hear me, Lesley—pity me! I have promised to marry a woman whom I do not love. I acknowledge it frankly. I shall never make her happy—strive as I may, her nature will never assimilate with mine. ”

“ But Life holds many secrets in her hand; and perhaps it was Janetta and not Margaret for whom a romance was yet in store.
"Hard? Do you call it hard?" Margaret asked, with a curiously exalted expression, like that of a saint absorbed in mystic joys. "It would be most easy, Janetta, to give up everything for love."
"I don't know," said Janetta—for once unsympathetic. "Giving up everything means a great deal. Would you like to go away from Helmsley Court, for instance, and live in a dingy street with no lady's maid—only a servant of all-work—on three hundred a year?" ”

“ And in the solitude of her own room Cynthia wrung her hands together, and shed a few bitter tears over the hardness and strangeness of her fate.
To one who knew all the facts of her story and her father's story, it might indeed have been a matter for meditation that "wrong-doing never ends"—that, because Sydney Vane had been an unprincipled man and Florence Lepel a woman without a conscience, therefore a child of whom they never heard had grown up without the presence of a father's love, or the innate reverence for truth that prevailed in the heart of a Jeanie Deans. ”

“ To draw from her gentle presence that bliss of absolute rest and ease which he had never known until he came to know her—to talk and listen without a shadow of reserve, forgetting self, unashamed of any inferiority which his mind might show in comparison with hers, unafraid of giving offense to that sweet and well-poised nature—to look upon her face, almost infantile in its ingenuous expression, yet with indomitable strength in the clear grey eyes which revealed the soul within—to live with her would indeed be perfect happiness! ”

“ Lady Alice was silent.
"I was afraid," said Lesley, softly, "lest the years that have gone by should have made you forget his gentleness and nobleness of soul—lest for one moment you should think him capable of a mean or vile action. I came to tell you, dearest mother, how impossible it was for us—who know him—to credit for one moment an accusation of this kind. If all the world said that he was guilty, you and I, mamma, would know that he was not."
"My child, my darling, you must speak for yourself. Do not try to speak for me!" ”

“ If you can love me, I am ready to give you my whole life, Enid. I have never in my life loved a woman as I love you. And I think that you could care for me a little; I seem to read it in your eyes—your poor tired eyes! Rest on me, my darling—trust to me—and we will fight through your difficulties together. ”

“ The woman who sat in one of the high-backed chairs was pale and sad: her folded hands lay listlessly clasped together on her lap, and the sombre garb that she wore was as unrelieved by any gleam of brightness as the room itself. In the gathering gloom of a chilly summer evening, even the rings upon her fingers could not flash. Her white face, in its setting of rough, wavy grey hair, over which she wore a covering of black lace, looked almost statuesque in its profound tranquillity. ”

“ He took the right road to Dunmuir, more by accident than by design, and walked beneath the rows of sheltering trees, through which the loch gleamed whitely on the one hand, while on the other the woods looked ominously black, without a thought of the revengeful ferocity which lurked beneath the velvet smoothness of Hugo Luttrell's outer demeanour. If something moved amongst the trees on his right hand, if something crouched amongst the brushwood, like a wild animal prepared to spring, he neither saw nor heard the tokens which might have moved him to suspicion. ”

“ For the man with whom she had gone away from Lettice's house she was willing to lay down her life if he would but accept the gift. And when he seemed loath to accept it, Milly became conscious of a heart-sick shame and pain which had already often brought tears that were not unworthy to her pretty childish eyes. The strength of her own feelings frightened her sometimes: she did not know how to resist the surging tide of passion and longing and regret that rose and fell within her breast, as uncontrollable by her weak will as the waves by the Danish king of history. ”

“ She does not look much like the mother of the tall girl whom we saw at Brighton, as she sits at the head of her breakfast-table in the daintiest of morning gowns—a marvelous combination of silk, muslin and lace and pale pink ribbons—with a tiny white dog reposing in her lap. She is a much smaller woman than Margaret, and darker in complexion: it is from her, however, that Margaret inherits the large, appealing hazel eyes, which look at you with an infinite sweetness, while their owner is perhaps thinking of the menu or her milliner's bill. ”

“ To make Lesley fall in love with me?—I wish I could! She is as cold as ice; as innocent as a child: and yet I think there is a tremendous capacity for passion in those dark eyes of hers, those mobile, sensitive lips! What lips to kiss! what eyes to flash back fire and feeling! what a splendid woman to win and show the world! ”

“ I will have my revenge."
"My fancy had settled on Rupert Vivian!" repeated Kitty, with a sudden rush of colour to her face. "Ah, how little you know about it! Rupert Vivian is far above me: he does not care for me. You have no business to speak of him."
"He does not care for you, but you are in love with him," said Hugo, looking at her from between his narrowed eyelids with a long penetrating gaze. "I understand."
Kitty shrank away from him. "No, no!" she cried. "I am not in love with anyone." ”

“ Hubert stood before her, his eyes on the floor, his lips white and tremulous. What could he say? He had nothing but his love to plead—and his love looked a poor and common thing beside that purity of motive, that height of purpose, that intensity of noble passion which at that moment made Cynthia's face beautiful indeed.
"I will see you no more," she said. "You must go back to Enid Vane, and you must make her happy. For me, I have another work to do. In my own way I—I shall be happy too. There is a double barrier between us, and we must never meet again." ”

“ He began to display a very real and strong affection for Nan. She had found the way to his heart—though she little suspected it—through his very weaknesses: she had conquered the man she loved by means of his selfishness. The worldly advantages she conferred took his nature by storm. It was not a high-minded way of contracting an engagement for life; but, as a fragrant flower may easily grow upon a very unpleasant dunghill, so the sweet flower of a true, pure love began to flourish on the heap of refuse with which the good in Sydney's nature had been overlaid. ”

“ If she thinks, as other people thought, that you want to marry her, she ought to be told the truth at once. You must tell her—yourself—that you were only amusing yourself—only playing with her, as no man has a right to play with a girl," said Janetta, with such vehemence that the tears rose to her great dark eyes and the scarlet color to her cheeks—"that you were flirting, in fact, and that Julian's mother—your wife, Cousin Wyvis—is still alive." ”

“ I call it dishonesty."
"So do I," said Kitty, warmly.
"Dishonesty? Not a bit of it," rejoined Percival. "The writer is the mouthpiece of the paper, which advocates certain views; he sinks his individuality; he does not profess to explain his own opinions. Besides, after all, what is dishonesty? Why should people erect honesty into such a great virtue? It is like truth-telling and—peaches; nobody wants them out of their proper season; they are never good when they are forced." ”

“ Can't you see that a woman loves a man for what he is, and not for what he does?"
"What he does proceeds from what he is, Cynthia, I am afraid," said Hubert sadly.
"Not always. People are often betrayed into doing things that do not show their real nature at all," said the girl eagerly. "A man gives way to a sudden temptation—he strikes a blow—and the world calls him a ruffian and a murderer; or he takes what belongs to another because he is starving, and the world calls him a common thief. We cannot judge." ”

“ Romaine," said Caspar, gently, but with a steady coldness of tone, of which she did not at first feel the import, "I think you hardly know the force of what you are saying. I do not incur any risk unnecessarily or wantonly: I only wish the truth to be made known. What can I do more—or less?"
"You could go away," she said, almost in a whisper.
If the room had been lighter, she might, perhaps, have seen the frown that was gathering on his brow, the wrath that darkened his eyes as he spoke: but his face was in shadow, and for a moment anger made him speechless. ”