Throughout, our story has been the sensationalism of angry fate, and
even less likely to be believed than the work of fiction. Nor was the
vulture face of the Nemesis yet smoothed down. The grief of her
bereavement had only partially diverted Effie's mind from the
recollections of him who had ruined her, and yet could not be hated by
her, nay, could not be but loved by her. The sensitized nerve, which had
received the old image, gave it out fresh again to the reviving power of
memory, and this was only a continuation of what had been a corroding
custom of years and years. But, as the saying goes, it is a long road
that does not offer by its side the spreading bough of shade to the
way-worn traveller. One day, when Effie was engaged with her work, of
which she was as weary as of the dreaming which accompanied it, there
appeared before her, without premonition or foreshadowing sign, Robert
Stormonth of Kelton, dressed as a country gentleman, booted, and with a
whip in his hand.
"Are you Effie Carr?"
The question was useless to one who was already lying back in her chair
in a state of unconsciousness, from which she recovered only to open her
eyes and avert them, and shut them and open them again, like the victim
of epilepsy.
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