And that miserable woman must
have got it in the face, good and strong. It must have been horrible
for her. Horrible! Well, I suppose she deserved all that she got.
Anyhow, there you have the picture, the immensely tall trees, elms
most of them, towering and feathering away up into the black
mistiness that trees seem to gather about them at night; the
silhouettes of those two upon the seat; the beams of light coming
from the Casino, the woman all in black peeping with fear behind
the tree-trunk. It is melodrama; but I can't help it.
And then, it appears, something happened to Edward Ashburnham.
He assured me--and I see no reason for disbelieving him--that
until that moment he had had no idea whatever of caring for the
girl. He said that he had regarded her exactly as he would have
regarded a daughter. He certainly loved her, but with a very deep,
very tender and very tranquil love. He had missed her when she
went away to her convent-school; he had been glad when she had
returned. But of more than that he had been totally unconscious.
Had he been conscious of it, he assured me, he would have fled
from it as from a thing accursed. He realized that it was the last
outrage upon Leonora.
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