Tristram who had succeeded in making her think continually of
him. And perhaps she half knew that though she had been loved by better
men, Hugh loved her better than they had.
Which would prove the stronger, the attraction or the repulsion?
"How can I?" she said to herself, over and over again.
"When I remember Lady Newhaven, how can I? When I think of what his
conduct was for a whole year, how can I? Can he have any sense of honor
to have acted like that? Is he even really sorry? He is very charming,
very refined, and he loves me. He looks good, but what do I know of him
except evil? He looks as if he could be faithful, but how can I trust
him?"
Hugh fell into a deep dejection after his narrow escape. Dr. Brown said
it was nervous prostration, and Doll rode into Southminster and returned
laden with comic papers. Who shall say whether the cause was physical or
mental? Hugh had seen death very near for the first time, and the
thought of death haunted him. He had not realized when he drew lots that
he was risking the possibility of anything like _that_, such an entire
going away, such an awful rending of his being as the short word _death_
now conveyed to him. He had had no idea it would be like _that_. And he
had got to do it again.
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