And hers, just now,
proved obstinately home-staying--had no wings wherewith to fly, but must
needs crawl a-fourfoot, around all manner of inglorious personal matters.
For that skirmish with her ex-governess, though she successfully bridled
her tongue and conquered by kindness rather than by smiting, had clouded
her inward serenity, not only by its inherent uselessness, but by
reminding her indirectly of an occurrence which it was her earnest desire
to forget.
Indirectly, mention of her beloved nurse, Sarah Watson--who journeying
back from a visit to her native Lancashire, just this time last year, had
met death swift and hideous in a railway collision--recalled to Damaris
the little scene, of a week ago, with Tom Verity when ho had asked her,
in the noonday sunshine out on the Bar, for some explanation of his
strange nocturnal experience. She went hot all over now, with exaggerated
childish shame, thinking of it. For had not she, Damaris Verity, though
nurtured in the creed that courage is the source and mother of all
virtues, shown the white feather, incontinently turned tail and run away?
Remembrance of that running scorched her, so that more than once,
awakening suddenly in the night, her fair young body was dyed rose-red
with the disgrace of it literally from head to heel.
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