If it weren't for that piece of paper you'd be like
the Irish or the Italians or the Poles, but particularly the Irish. . . ."
And she laid one finger upon Captain Ashburnham' s wrist.
I was aware of something treacherous, something frightful,
something evil in the day. I can't define it and can't find a simile
for it. It wasn't as if a snake had looked out of a hole. No, it was as
if my heart had missed a beat. It was as if we were going to run
and cry out; all four of us in separate directions, averting our
heads. In Ashburnham's face I know that there was absolute panic.
I was horribly frightened and then I discovered that the pain in my
left wrist was caused by Leonora's clutching it:
"I can't stand this," she said with a most extraordinary passion; "I
must get out of this." I was horribly frightened. It came to me for
a moment, though I hadn't time to think it, that she must be a
madly jealous woman--jealous of Florence and Captain
Ashburnham, of all people in the world! And it was a panic in
which we fled! We went right down the winding stairs, across the
immense Rittersaal to a little terrace that overlooks the Lahn, the
broad valley and the immense plain into which it opens out.
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