254
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
"Not the least, dear Radie — that is, I mean, it could
have no possible effect, unless the circumstances were first
supposed, and then it could be of no appreciable use. And
your way of life and your looks — for both are changed
— are likely, in a little prating village, where every
human being is watched and discussed incessantly, to excite
conjecture; that is all, and that is every thing."
It had grown dark while Stanley sat in the little
drawing-room, and Rachel stood on her doorstep, and saw
his figure glide away slowly into the thin mist and shadow,
and turn upward to return to Brandon, by that narrow
ravine where they had held rendezvous with Mark Wylder,
on that ill-omened night when trouble began for all.
When Stanley took his leave after one of these visits —
stolen visits, somehow, they always seemed to her — the
solitary mistress of Redman's Farm invariably experienced
the nervous reaction which follows the artificial calm of sup-
pressed excitement. Something of panic or horror, reliev-
ed sometimes by a gush of tears — sometimes more slow-
ly and painfully subsiding without that hysterical escape.
She went in and shut the door, and called Tamar. But
Tamar was out of the way. She hated that little drawing-
room in her present mood — its associations were odious
and even ghastly; so she sat herself down by the kitchen
fire, and placed her pretty feet — cold now — upon the
high steel fender, and extended her cold hands towards the
embers. leaning back in her rude chair.