"You don't hear the words," the doctor remarked, with a smile which, in
the dark, looked Mephistophelean.
"Oh, I know the words!" the young man exclaimed, with rather a groan, as
he offered her his hand for good-night.
XXXVI
A certain prudence had determined him to put off his visit till the
morning; he thought it more probable that at that time he should be able
to see Verena alone, whereas in the evening the two young women would be
sure to be sitting together. When the morrow dawned, however, Basil
Ransom felt none of the trepidation of the procrastinator; he knew
nothing of the reception that awaited him, but he took his way to the
cottage designated to him over-night by Doctor Prance, with the step of
a man much more conscious of his own purpose than of possible obstacles.
He made the reflexion, as he went, that to see a place for the first
time at night is like reading a foreign author in a translation. At the
present hour--it was getting towards eleven o'clock--he felt that he was
dealing with the original. The little straggling, loosely-clustered town
lay along the edge of a blue inlet, on the other side of which was a
low, wooded shore, with a gleam of white sand where it touched the
water. The narrow bay carried the vision outward to a picture that
seemed at once bright and dim--a shining, slumbering summer sea, and a
far-off, circling line of coast, which, under the August sun, was hazy
and delicate.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185