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By bearing away to the left into another path, and making a detour, she could reach the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading past a now disused mill and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill above. As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby's watched her.
It was as though Fate had deliberately tempted him and arranged the necessary conditions, for Soolsby's feet were in a little pool of liquid which had been spilled on the floor the experiment was exact and real.
"Speak," he added presently, as Soolsby fumbled in his great loose pockets, and drew forth a paper. "What has thee to say?" Without a word, Soolsby handed over the paper, but the other would not take it. "What is it?" he asked, his lips growing pale. "Read if thee can read." The gibe in the last words made the colour leap into Soolsby's face, and a fighting look came.
The words he had chosen long ago were gone from his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby's dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up before him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed.
Long ago Faith had said in Soolsby's but that he "blandished" all with whom he came in contact; but Hylda realised with a lacerated heart that he had ceased to blandish her. Possession had altered that. Yet how had he vowed to her in those sweet tempestuous days of his courtship when the wind of his passion blew so hard! Had one of the vows been kept?
He stood for a moment, smiling, as he looked at the stone where he had sat those years ago, his hand feeling instinctively for his flute. Presently he turned to the dusty road again. Walking quickly away, he swung into the path of the wood which would bring him by a short cut to Hamley, past Soolsby's cottage. Here was the old peace, the old joy of solitude among the healing trees.
And when he's seen it fall at last, he'll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get to its tree-top again if it can if it can if it can, my lord! That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is who left my door but now. He came to snatch old Soolsby's palace, his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies.
For an instant the desert, the temples, the palms, the Nile waters faded, and she was in some middle world, in which Soolsby's voice seemed coming muffled and deep across a dark flood; then she recovered herself, and gave a little cry, not unlike that which Kate gave a few moments before, partly of pain, partly of relief. "Ay, he's dead and buried, too, and in the Quaker churchyard.
Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at Soolsby's hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen her, when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once. Eglington and Faith had not met, however.
My soul would have none of them masks of men, the slaves of riches and titles, and tyrants over the poor." His voice grew hoarse and high, and his head bent forward. He spoke as though forgetful of Soolsby's presence: "As the East is from the West, so were we separate from these lovers of this world, the self-indulgent, the hard-hearted, the proud.
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