She would trust in Robin. He was
unlike other men. There had always been in him something that set him
apart, a strangeness, a romance, a love of hidden things, a subtlety. If
only he would still care for her, still feel towards her as he had felt,
she could face the future, she thought. They might be apart. That did not
matter. She had no thought of a close connection, of frequent intercourse
even. She only wanted desperately, frantically, to know that someone who
had loved her could love her still in spite of what had happened. If she
could retain one deep affection she felt that she could live.
The morrow would convince her.
That night she did not sleep. She lay in bed and heard the water falling
in the gorge, and when the dawn began to break she did a thing she had
not done for a long time.
She got out of bed, knelt down and prayed--prayed to Him who had dealt
terribly with her that He would be merciful when Robin came.
When it was daylight and the Italian maid knocked at her door she told
her to get out a plain, dark dress. She did her hair herself with the
utmost simplicity. That at least was still beautiful. Then she went down
and walked in the high garden above the lake. The greyness had lifted and
the sky was blue. The mellowness rather than the sadness of autumn was
apparent, throned on the tall mountains whose woods were bathed in
sunshine. All along the great old wall, that soared forty feet from the
water, roses were climbing.
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