Stella Maris by William John Locke

Author:William John Locke
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: England -- Fiction, Man-woman relationships -- Fiction, Invalids -- Fiction
Published: 2017-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

CHAPTER XV

WINTER came and melted into spring. Physically Stella had progressed beyond all hopes. Like the Lady in “The Sensitive Plant,” she walked a ruling grace about the garden of the Channel House, and nursed the daffodils and narcissi and tulips with tender hands. In these she took a passionate joy curiously exceeding that in other revelations of the great world. Indeed, during most of the winter, she had shrunk from mingling with humanity. Her zest for the new life had been dulled. She found excuses for not going beyond the garden gate, and of her own free will did not seek the society of those dear to her. The windows of her sea-chamber once more afforded her the accustomed outlook, and the gulls wheeling high in the wintry gusts again became her companions.

The Blounts let her have her way,—was she not autocrat?—putting down her hesitations and cravings for solitude to a young girl's delicate whimsies of which they could not divine the motive; for she, who had once been expansive, now had grown strangely reticent. Even Herold, who used to accompany her into the Land That Never Was, did not gain her confidence. Into those mystic regions she could admit him freely; but the Threatening Land that lay beyond the threshold of her sea-chamber a heart-gripping shyness forced her to tread alone.

“Life has frightened you,” he said one day.

“How do you know that?” she asked, with a quick glance.

He smiled.

“You are like an Æolian harp set in the wind, my dear.”

“Only you can hear it.”

“Every one hears it.”

She shook her head.

“No; only you.”

“That's as may be,” he said, with a laugh. “Anyhow, something has frightened you. What is it?”

Stella rose—she had learned to walk; the hours of her exercises had been the gayest in her day—and touched him lightly with her fingers on the shoulder, and went and stood by the great window of the drawing-room and looked out at her sky and sea. The Great High Favourite, with his uncanny insight, had read her truly. Womanlike, she did not know whether to resent his surprising of her innermost secret or to love him for it. She was understood; that was balm. Yet what right had he to understand? The question was a drop of gall. The pure spirit of her flew to the chosen companion of her dreams; something—the nature of which she was unaware—sex-instinct—forbade too close an intimacy in things real and tangible. And there was a touch of resentment, too, in an outer circle of her mind. Why had he given her no warning of the Threatening Land? He had allowed her to step ignorantly upon its thorns, and her feet still bled.

Herold turned in his chair and glanced at her slim figure framed by the window. Then he went softly to her side.

“Stellamaris, you are dearer to me than anything on God's earth. Tell me what frightens you. Maybe I can help you.”

But Stella shook her head. She had been accustomed from childhood

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.