Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/176

 was forced upon her, as it were, by another self—and somehow her eyes refused to obey her will.

It disconcerted her the more, and, as the colour came and went from her cheeks, she stood there for a long time fighting for control of herself. Then, at last, the fair, gold-crowned head lifted slowly, and slowly the great, deep blue eyes were raised—only to find Varge's fixed upon her. But an instant their glances held; then, naturally, quietly, his was lowered to his work again—but in that instant it seemed to her as though, conscious of her thoughts, he had impelled her look, and, even at that distance, had read with those grave, serious eyes of his what was passing in her mind. Flushed, confused again, she turned abruptly, and mechanically picked up her sun-bonnet from where she had dropped it on the ground.

Her mind rushed into quick, impetuous, eager analysis, seeking a solution that would quiet the strange throbbing of her heart. Yes; Harold Merton had been right in saying that her life was too centred, too much bound up with prison atmosphere, that all her interests, all her thoughts were here. This had brought it home to her—she understood a little better, a little more clearly now what he meant. She had been so used to seeing men in convict garb around her, they had been so intimately a part of her environment since ever she could remember, that she had perhaps come unconsciously to accept them as she would accept the presence of any other men without the instant differentiation that one unaccustomed to such surroundings would have sensed and felt. And so it had doubtless been—it must have been—with Varge. She had accepted him solely as