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Gissing, George, 1857-1903

"The Unclassed"

You are one of those who
cannot rest till they have won a high place. I, too, have my work,
and--"
Her voice failed.
"Shall we never see each other again, Ida?"
"Perhaps. In a few years we might meet, and be friends. But I dare
not think of that now."
They clasped hands, for one dread moment resisted the lure of eyes
and lips, and so parted.


CHAPTER XXXVII
FORBIDDEN


December was half through, and it was the eve of Maud Enderby's
marriage-day. Everything was ready for the morrow. Waymark had been
away in the South, and the house to which he would take his wife now
awaited their coming.
It was a foggy night. Maud had been for an hour to Our Lady of the
Rosary, and found it difficult to make her way back. The street
lamps were mere luminous blurs upon the clinging darkness, and the
suspension of the wonted traffic made the air strangely still. It
was cold, that kind of cold which wraps the limbs like a cloth
soaked in icy water. When she knocked at the door of her aunt's
house, and it was opened to her, wreaths of mist swept in and hung
about the lighted hall. It seemed colder within than without.
Footsteps echoed here in the old way, and voices lost themselves in
a muffled resonance along the bare white walls.


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