"How dare he forget the distance between us? Poor fellow!
have not I at times forgotten it? I am worse than he. I lost my
self-possession; I should have checked his folly; he knows nothing of
_les convenances._ He has hurt my hand, he is so rough; I feel
his clutch now; there, I thought so, it is all red--poor fellow!
Nonsense! he is a sailor; he knows nothing of the world and its
customs. Parting with a pleasant acquaintance forever made him a
little sad.
"He is all nature; he is like nobody else; he shows every feeling
instead of concealing it, that is all. He has gone home, I hope." She
glanced hastily back. He was sitting on the stones, his arms drooping,
his head bowed, a picture of despondency. She put her face in her
hands again and pondered, blushing higher and higher. Then the pale
face that had always been ruddy before, the simple grief and
agitation, the manly eye that did not know how to weep, but was so
clouded and troubled, and wildly sad; the shaking hands, that had
clutched hers like a drowning man's (she felt them still), the
quivering features, choked voice, and trembling lip, all these
recoiled with double force upon her mind: they touched her far more
than sobs and tears would have done, her sex's ready signs of shallow
grief.
Two tears stole down her cheeks.
"If he would but go home and forget me!" She glanced hastily back.
David was climbing up a tree, active as a cat. "He is like nobody
else--he! he! Stay! is that to see the last of me--the very last? Poor
soul! Madman, how will this end? What can come of it but misery to
him, remorse to me?
"This is love.
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