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He had begun to love Miriam with a sincerity that wished to win and not to force her; he had controlled the wild heritage of his fathers and tried to forget the sweetness of her body in the larch-wood; he was determined not to take what she would not give him gladly; and now, by her own act, she had changed his striving love into desire desire to hurt, to feel her struggling in his arms, hating his kisses, paying a bitter price for her misuse of him.
Pheasants used often to stray over from Lord Powerscourt's demesne, which was separated from our ground by a much-broken fence. These my father strictly forbade me to snare, but I fear I did not always obey him. Pheasants roasted in the depths of the larch-wood, and flavored with the salt of secrecy, were appetizing indeed. One ridiculous incident of my childhood suggests itself.
"They're lying quite comfortably dead in the larder." "Oh, thank Heaven! Shall I tell you a horrible secret of my past life? Once when I was very small, I crept through Halkett's larch-wood just to see what was happening down there, because Mrs. Samson had been hinting things, and what I saw oh, what do you think I saw?"
Not one showed its face among the clouds, and there was no moon to wrinkle her droll features at the little men on earth. Helen was the star, shining in the larch-wood. He called her name, but she did not hear, and he seemed to be caught up by the sound and to float among the clouds. "It's like being converted," he told himself, and he followed slowly across the moor.
They got home to Castle Dare before the rain came on; though, indeed, it was but a passing shower, and it was succeeded by a bright afternoon that deepened into a clear and brilliant sunset; but as they went up through the moist-smelling larch-wood and as Janet happened to fall behind for a moment, to speak to a herdboy who was by the wayside Macleod said to his companion,
Miriam took a step nearer. "What is she like?" "Oh queer." "Then perhaps I'd rather go to George," she whispered. "I'm halfway there already," Helen said from the door. She slipped across the moor with the speed which came so easily to her, and her breathing had hardly quickened when she issued from the larch-wood and stood on the cobble-stones before the low white house.
The darkness drew her, and she thought of climbing the hill and plunging into the depths of the larch-wood above the pasture. Then she glanced irresolutely along the street, and as she did so a gleam appeared through the spruces at Miss Hatchard's gate. Lucius Harney was there, then he had not gone down to Hepburn with Mr. Miles, as she had at first imagined.
It was lovely to see the morning sun climbing over One-Tree Hill, catching the larch-wood, and creeping down the broad slope of our field; thence up toward Redwood and Leckington until, while the dews yet lay thick on our shadowed valley, Leckington Hill was all in a glow of light.
Even the feel in the air was new, that delicious crisp burning warmth that lay so lightly as it were on the surface of frozen stillness; and the special sweetness of all places at the foot of mountains scent of pine-gum, burning larch-wood, and all the meadow flowers and grasses.
"I think every one has," said John, looking round on his apple-cheeked boys; it must have been a sharp eye that detected any decrease of health, or increase of suffering, there. "But my plan will set all to rights. I spoke to Mrs. Tod yesterday. She will be ready to take us all in. Boys, shall you like going to Enderley? You shall go as soon as ever the larch-wood is green."
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