Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/328

318 natural impulses—an antidote to those emotions of tumultuous excitement which would otherwise have carried me away against my reason and my will, but just then I felt the restraint almost intolerable, and I had the greatest difficulty in forcing myself to attend to her remarks and answer them with ordinary politeness; for I was sensible that Helen was standing within a few feet of me beside the fire. I dared not look at her, but I felt her eye was upon me, and from one hasty, furtive glance, I thought her cheek was slightly flushed, and that her fingers, as she played with her watch chain, were agitated with that restless, trembling motion which betokens high excitement.

"Tell me," said she, availing herself of the first pause in the attempted conversation between her aunt and me, and speaking fast and low with her eyes bent on the gold chain—for I now ventured another glance—"Tell me how you all are at Lindenhope?—has nothing happened since I left you?"