The Cameronians: A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3)Grant, James
General
The Cameronians: A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3)
Grant, James
Fiction
She saw that he had still at his watch-chain a tiny gold locket,
which she remembered well; for it had been her gift to him, and
contained a microscopic likeness of herself on one side, and a lock
of her golden hair on the other--or _had_ done so, when she saw it
last.
Did it contain them now, or had they given place to memorials of--of
that other woman--a hateful and humiliating thought!
How she longed for an excuse or opportunity to get into another
carriage, or for other passengers to come in, ere he recognised her;
but the train was an express one, and no addition could be made to
their number for some time to come.
Secure, as yet, behind the mask of her veil, she watched him, while
her heart beat with lightning-speed, and swelled with unavailing
regret. Intent, apparently, on his paper, he had not recognised her.
He had, of course, ceased to care for her, she thought, when he had
learned to love that other one; and so now, her coming, and her
going, her joy and her sorrow, were nothing to him--were less than
the snow of last winter!
Yet she was woman enough to love him now, when breathing the same
atmosphere with him--seated within a yard of him--to love him, in
these the days of his biting indifference, even as she had done in
those when a smile of hers could bring him so winningly to her side.
'What a fool I am!' she thought; 'oh, I hate myself! Would that I
were a man--they can so easily forget!'
At that moment one of her bracelets became unclasped and fell at his
feet.
He picked it up, and not sorry, perhaps, for an excuse to address
her, said simply: 'Permit me?' and clasped it round her white and
shapely wrist.
'Thanks,' she replied as briefly; but her voice, though low,
instantly stirred a chord in his heart; the memory of her figure
rushed upon him; he gazed keenly at the fair face half hidden by its
veil of lace.
'Annabelle--Miss Erroll!' said he, in a strange voice, while lifting
his hat, and half offering a hand: a motion which she ignored, and
felt herself grow pallid in being discovered at last--pallid with
something of anger too, for, with all her natural sweetness,
Annabelle had a heart of pride.
'We are old friends,' said he, with some confusion or emotion of
manner; 'at least we can be that?'
'Not even that, I fear,' said she, with affected firmness; and then
added a little irrelevantly: 'would that I had never come here; an
express train, too--how provoking!'
'Is my company so hateful--or are we to be enemies now?'
'As you please,' she replied, with growing irritation, for, her
secret sentiments apart, the sudden situation exasperated her, after
all that had occurred. 'To meet you here was, at least, the last
thing I could have expected.'
'Or wished?'
'I have no reason for not replying in the affirmative--yes.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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