She checked herself for an
infinitesimal moment, then moved on again. Donal stood with bended
head as she passed. If she acknowledged his obeisance it was with
the slightest return, but she lifted her eyes to his face with a
look that seemed to have in it a strange wistful trouble--not very
marked, yet notable. She passed on and vanished, leaving that look a
lingering presence in Donal's thought. What was it? Was it anything?
What could it mean? Had he really seen it? Was it there, or had he
only imagined it?
Simmons kept him waiting a good while. He had found his lordship
getting up, and had had to stay to help him dress. At length he
came, excusing himself that his lordship's temper at such
times--that was, in his dumpy fits--was not of the evenest, and
required a gentle hand. But his lordship would see him--and could
Mr. Grant find the way himself, for his old bones ached with running
up and down those endless stone steps? Donal answered he knew the
way, and sprang up the stair.
But his mind was more occupied with the coming interview than with
the way to it, which caused him to take a wrong turn after leaving
the stair: he had a good gift in space-relations, but instinct was
here not so keen as on a hill-side. The consequence was that he
found himself in the picture-gallery.
A strange feeling of pain, as at the presence of a condition he did
not wish to encourage, awoke in him at the discovery.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264