Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/199

194 hers. Alas, in the shock and surprise, she did not see the tender longing, the unspoken invitation that made it almost luminous. She stood still a moment, trembling violently, but speech entirely forsook her, and possessed she knew not by what fear, she hurried on. Then she heard his horse's hoofs in a mad gallop, and every beat of them seemed to be upon her heart. Love, longing, shame, sorrow, tossed her on a sea of passionate regret.

"Oh, if she could retrace the evil road! Oh, if Anthony could ever again be the lover husband of the old happy days! Why had she not spoken to him? Why had she not held his bridal-reins and made him listen to her? Oh, how foolish, how cowardly she had been. And Anthony would think her still proud and unforgiving and unrepentant. Oh, what a miserable wife she was;" and thus murmuring broken laments, and prayers of contrition, and implorations for pardon and comfort, she went rapidly, and almost unconsciously, along the frozen road.

At the same hour, Jonathan was driving homeward in an unusually happy mood, and