As the time of our departure approached, a week or two before we had gone
down to Valparaiso, where Garth had business to wind up, I was enabled to
study more intimately the morbid demon which possessed him. It was the most
singular thing in the world: no man had hated the country more, had been
more passionately determined for a period of years to escape from it; and
now that his chance was come the emotion with which he viewed it was nearer
akin to terror than to the joy of a reasonable man who is about to compass
the desire of his life. He had kept the covenant which he had made with
himself; he was a rich man, richer than he had ever meant to be. Even now
he was full of vigour, and not much past the threshold of middle age, and
he was going home to the woman whom for the best part of fifteen years he
had adored with an unexampled constancy, whose fidelity had been to him all
through that exile as the shadow of a rock in a desert land: he was going
home to an honourable marriage. But withal he was a man with an incurable
sadness; miserable and afraid. It seemed to me at times that he would have
been glad if she had kept her troth less well, had only availed herself of
that freedom which he gave her, to disregard her promise.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209