It haunted
her even as a shadow of herself, which, disappearing at sundown, comes
again at the rising of the noon; nay, she would have been contented to
make other sacrifices equally great as that which she had made; nor wild
moors, nor streams, nor rugged hills, would have stopped her in an
effort to look upon him once more, and replace that inevitable image by
the real vision, which had first taken captive her young heart.
But time passed, bringing the usual ameliorations to the miserable.
Effie got so far better in health that she became able to resume, in a
languid way, her former duties, with the exception of those of "the
gentle clerk"--for of these she had had enough; even the very look of a
bank-draft brought a shudder over her; nor would she have entered the
Bank of Scotland again, even with a good cheque for a thousand pounds,
to have been all her own. Meanwhile the patient George had plied a suit
which he could only express by his eyes or the attentions of one who
worships, but he never alluded, even in their conversations, to the old
sacrifice. The mother too, and not less the father, saw the advantages
that might result as well to the health of her mind as that of her body.
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