East of the Shadows

"I wish I had known him then. Oh, Isabella, doesn't it seem extraordinary to think of all that has happened in these last few weeks? I was in such a stupid frame of mind when I came here--so self-centred and so dissatisfied--and now, everything is changed for me. First came all the interest and the intense pity I felt, and then, little by little, love grew without my knowing it until it filled my heart, and I know that whatever happens life can never be the same again to me. It seems so wonderful that everything can be changed in a moment. Does love always come like that? The realisation of it, I mean. I suppose not. Oh, I am sorry for the people who have never felt it. I can hardly believe that I am the same person who grumbled at life being empty a little while ago, for now it is so good to be alive." She stretched out her arms with a welcoming gesture that seemed to embrace the whole world. Then she turned quickly.

"Forgive me, Isabella," she said with a little happy smile; "forgive me for talking about myself, I don't know what made me do it. I think my heart was so full it just had to come out. Now let us talk of something else. How is the book getting on?"

"Not very well, I am afraid. I must confess it has not progressed much the last few days; partly because I have not been quite in the mood for it, which is a terrible confession of weakness, and partly because Mrs. Palling has been on the war-path.

"First of all her beloved bees have been in a most unsettled frame of mind, or so she tells me--I can't say I have seen any sign of it myself--and she assures me that something is going to happen. At first she felt certain that it was the arrival of a visitor for which they strove to prepare her. I am quite sure that it must have been your coming that is the cause of it. No one ever invaded my solitude before, and the excitement was too much for her. But as day after day passed and no stranger arrived, she changed her mind and is now equally certain that the restlessness of her household gods portends some fearful disaster. The awkward part of it is, that even she cannot make out what form it will take; she merely tells me gloomily that something is going to happen. She has tied a bunch of herbs over the door to keep illness away, and she has presented me with a little stone which she beseeches me to carry about with me to avert accident, but even these precautions haven't comforted her much. Whenever I return home I see her waiting anxiously at the gate with a face long enough to propitiate all the gods of misfortune, and when she sees me she finds it hard to believe that I am not dragging myself home to die of some hidden wound.