These last weeks she had lived in a dream, and every aspiration of her soul, every tendency of her life, had drifted always further away from the existence she and fate had chosen for herself. Now there was a gulf between Rosamond English and Rosamond Gerardine; and by the hot recoil of her blood she knew that it was unsurmountable. How could she ever go back; again be wife of the man she loved not, she who was widow of the man she loved!
She looked for the letter in her hand to cast it from her, and found that it had already escaped her careless hold. Upon the yellow grass at her feet the wind was chasing it; turning it mockingly over and over, a contemptible foolish thing, meanly out of place among the withered leaves, the naturally dying things of the fields.
So little place had Sir Arthur Gerardine in the life of Rosamond--Rosamond, the widow of Harry English!
Full winter seemed to have come in a night; everywhere rime lay white upon the land, every blade was a frosted silver spear. Not a leaf yet kept the summer green; shrunken, brown and yellow, they hung by their brittle stems; it was a still morning, and he who had ears to listen to nature sounds, all through the woods could have heard ever and anon the sigh of one, falling here and there. A dim blue winter sky held the world; the sunshine was serene and faintly warm, like the heart of a good old man. The air was like iced wine to drink, invigorating, tingling through the veins. It painted Aspasia's cheeks a splendid scarlet. It filled her with the spirits of all young things, foals and kittens and cubs; so that she could hardly keep from prancing down the iron path, from cutting steps on the stiff grass to hear it crackle beneath her feet.
As Bethune looked at her, he thought she was as pretty as a winter robin in her brown furs. Her eyes glistened as she flung quick glances at him; her dimples came and went; her teeth flashed as she chattered at headlong speed. They were going to Sunday service at the village church, a couple of miles away, and Baby was setting forth with a delightful sense of vigour and freedom.
Those whose fate binds them to cities can have no idea of the delicate joys of the country walk, with the beloved one--him or her--who fills the thoughts. Alas! for the poor wench that has no better pleasure than to tramp along the crowded street. What does she know of the loveliness of "solitude for two," of the dear sympathy of nature, perfect in every season with the heart that is of her clay?