Tavernake, in
time, began to find a sort of comfort in her calm, sexless
companionship. He knew very well that he was to her as she was
to him, something human, something that filled an empty place,
yet something without direct personality. Little by little he
felt the bitterness in his heart grow less. Then a late spring
--late, at any rate, in this quaint corner of the world--stole
like some wonderful enchantment across the face of the moors and
the marshes. Yellow gorse starred with golden clumps the brown
hillside; wild lavender gleamed in patches across the
silver-streaked marshes; the dead hedges came blossoming into
life. Crocuses, long lines of yellow and purple crocuses, broke
from waxy buds into starlike blossoms along the front of Matthew
Nicholls's garden. And with the coming o spring, Tavernake found
himself suddenly able to thin of the past. It was a new phase of
life. He could sit down and think of those things that had
happened to him, without fearing to be wrecked by the storm.
Often he sat out looking seaward, thinking of the days when he
had first met Beatrice, of those early days of pleasant
companionship, of the marvelous avidity with which he had learned
from her. Only when Elizabeth's face stole into the foreground
did he spring from his place and turn back to his work.
One day Tavernake sat poring over the weekly local paper, reading
it more out of curiosity than from any real interest. Suddenly a
familiar name caught his eye.
Pages:
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303