Could that be Marie? Could that be the wife of Ferdinand
Morales? If she were the one, how could she be the other, when
scarcely eighteen months previous, she had told him that which, if
it were true, must equally prevent her union with Morales as with
himself? In what were they different save in the vast superiority of
wealth and rank? And in the chaos of bewildering emotions, so trustful
was he in the truth of her he loved, that, against the very evidence
of his own senses, he for the moment disbelieved in the identity
of the wife of Morales with the Marie Henriquez of the Cedar Vale.
Perhaps it was well he did so, for it enabled him to still the
tumultuous throbbing of his every pulse as her voice again sounded in
his ear, saying he was welcome, most welcome as her husband's friend,
and to retire without any apparent emotion to his seat.
He had merely bowed reverentially in reply. In any other person the
silence itself would have caused remark: but for the last three years
Stanley's reserve and silence in the company of women had been such,
that a departure from his general rule even in the present case would
have been more noticed than his silence. Thoughts of painful, almost
chaotic bewilderment indeed, so chased each other across his mind as
to render the scene around him indistinct, the many faces and eager
voices like the phantasma of a dream.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113