Only the throbbing
music of the stream beat upon the ears, and beat with a louder
significance, since all else was still. Sylvia lay staring wide-eyed
into the darkness. To the murmur of this music, in perhaps this very
room, she had been born. "Why," she asked piteously, "why?" Of what
use was it that she must suffer?
Of all the bad hours of her life, these were the worst. For the yearning
for happiness and love throbbed and cried at her heart, louder and
louder, just as the music of the stream swelled to importance with the
coming of the night. And she learned that she had had both love and
happiness within her grasp and that she had thrown them away for a
shadow. She thought of the letter which she had written, recalling its
phrases with a sinking heart.
"No man could forgive them. I must have been mad," she said, and she
huddled herself upon her bed and wept aloud.
She ran over in her mind the conversations which she and Hilary Chayne
had exchanged, and each recollection accused her of impatience and paid a
tribute to his gentleness. On the very first day he had asked her to go
with him and her heart cried out now:
"Why didn't I go?"
He had been faithful and loyal ever since, and she had called his
faithfulness importunity and his loyalty a humiliation. She struck a
match and looked at her watch and by habit wound it up.
Pages:
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240