The Moonstone
Page 368Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!
She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him in a silent
ecstasy of happiness, till the tears rose in her eyes. She dried her
eyes, and said she would fetch her work. She fetched her work, and never
did a single stitch of it. It lay in her lap--she was not even able to
look away from him long enough to thread her needle. I thought of my own
youth; I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked love at me. In
the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for relief, and wrote
in it what is written here.
So we kept our watch together in silence. One of us absorbed in his
writing; the other absorbed in her love.
and grew in the room, and still he never moved.
Towards six o'clock, I felt the warning which told me that my pains
were coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a little
while. I said I would go up-stairs, and fetch another pillow for him out
of his room. It was not a long attack, this time. In a little while I
was able to venture back, and let her see me again.
I found her at the head of the sofa, when I returned. She was just
touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I
could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright
smile, and a charming colour in her face. "You would have done it," she
* * * * * It is just eight o'clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.
Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed
herself that when his eyes first open, they must open on her face.
Shall I leave them together?
Yes!
* * * * * Eleven o'clock.--The house is empty again. They have arranged it among
themselves; they have all gone to London by the ten o'clock train. My
brief dream of happiness is over. I have awakened again to the realities
of my friendless and lonely life.
I dare not trust myself to write down, the kind words that have been
needless. Those words will come back to me in my solitary hours, and
will help me through what is left of the end of my life. Mr. Blake is to
write, and tell me what happens in London. Miss Verinder is to return to
Yorkshire in the autumn (for her marriage, no doubt); and I am to take a
holiday, and be a guest in the house. Oh me, how I felt, as the grateful
happiness looked at me out of her eyes, and the warm pressure of her
hand said, "This is your doing!"