She had lost a lover, that was all, and there were plenty more to
choose from, or there always had been; but the only one she wanted was the one
who made no sign. She used to think that she could twist Stephen around her
little finger; that she had only to beckon to him and he would follow her to
the ends of the earth. Now fear had entered her heart. She no longer felt
sure, because she no longer felt worthy, of him, and feeling both uncertainty
and unworthiness, her lips were sealed and she was rendered incapable of
making any bid for forgiveness.
So the little world of Pleasant River went on, to all outward seeming, as it
had ever gone. On one side of the stream a girl's heart was longing, and
pining, and sickening, with hope deferred, and growing, too, with such
astonishing rapidity that the very angels marveled! And on the other, a man's
whole vision of life and duty was widening and deepening under the fructifying
influence of his sorrow.
The corn waved high and green in front of the vacant riverside cottage, but
Stephen sent no word or message to Rose. He had seen her once, but only from a
distance. She seemed paler and thinner, he thought,--the result, probably, of
her metropolitan gayeties.
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