She had carried Willoughby into
that enclosure, and his story had absorbed her and kept her memory on
the rack, as she filled out with this or that recollected detail of
Harry's gestures, or voice, or looks, the deficiencies in her
companion's narrative. She had been swept away from that August garden
of sunlight and coloured flowers; and those five most weary years,
during which she had held her head high and greeted the world with a
smile of courage, were blotted from her experience. How weary they had
been perhaps she never knew, until she raised her head and saw Durrance
at the entrance in the hedge.
"Hush!" she said to Willoughby, and her face paled and her eyes shut
tight for a moment with a spasm of pain. But she had no time to spare
for any indulgence of her feelings. Her few minutes' talk with Captain
Willoughby had been a holiday, but the holiday was over. She must take
up again the responsibilities with which those five years had charged
her, and at once. If she could not accomplish that hard task of
forgetting--and she now knew very well that she never would accomplish
it--she must do the next best thing, and give no sign that she had not
forgotten.
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