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Victor or victim ; or, The mine of Darley Dale
Victor or victim or The mine of Darley Dale Author:John Saunders Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE PARTING CUP. I HEN, however, Mabel Dakeyne had again reached her home, the blank look of the house outside so keenly revived her consc... more »iousness of the still more terrible | blank within, that after a brief apology to the Rector and Anthony, who were the nearest to her, she left them, as she said, for a few minutes' rest; but in truth that she might give way in her solitary bedchamber to the wildest transports of distress, fed as they were -each instant by a cruelly vivid imagination ; that one moment painted the past in the brightest hues, but only to intensify and prolong in the next her vision of the future, as something so appalling, that she shrank in piteous terror from the very idea of its -acceptance. Of course this state also passed away in a little time. She then rejoined her guests,. looking paler even than before, but not otherwise giving any sign of what she had passed through. But there were trying periods to follow. Many guests were in the house, some who had come from great distances. Mabel was the only hostess. If hospitality was to be shown, she alone could fulfil its duties. So she did fulfil them. And though the shade of sadness hardly left her features for a single moment, it was generally noticed how thoughtful and considerate she became, anticipating every one's wish and comfort. The fact was, that in so often yielding to the intense emotion that kept welling up from her heart, like a fountain of bitter waters in the desert, Mabel Dakeyne was after all obeying the wisest of counsellors, the instinct that Nature had placed in her breast. And she began now to have her reward in a growing sense of something which was not peace, but might lead to it; and which gave as its first- sign to the young mourner the consciousness of bei...« less