And then, too, the mountain streams were
beset with quick-sands--indeed, every detail of the night journey was
environed with danger. He could scarcely be expected to win through
safely, and Gladys felt a rush of indignation that he should have
attempted the feat. Must a man be as wax in a woman's hands--especially a
woman whom he knew unreliable of old, who had failed him when his whole
heart was bound up in her? At her utmost need, she had said, to be sure,
but he had not canvassed the urgency of the necessity, he had not even
asked a question! He had simply rushed forth into the blizzard. But even
while she contemned his foolhardiness, she was woe for Lillian!--to
entertain a hope, even though the folly of illusion, as an oasis in her
deep distress, a sentiment so revivifying, so potent, that it seemed to
raise her as it were from the dead; and yet within the hour to be
battered down by self-reproach, an anguish of anxiety, of torture, of
suspense, for the fate of the man she had so arbitrarily called to her
aid, to make the hope effective in the rescue of her child.
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