She was bitterly
humiliated by her own poltroonery, ingenuously doubtful as to whether she
could ever quite recover her self-respect; glad that every day put two
hundred miles and more of sea between her and Tom Verity, since he had
witnessed that contemptible fall from grace.
Nevertheless, after her first consternation--in which, to avoid further
speech with him she had sought refuge among the unsavoury seine nets in
the fore-part of Jennifer's ferry-boat--Tom Verity's probable opinion of
her undignified action troubled her far less than the cause of the said
action itself. For exactly what, after all, had so upset her, begetting
imperative necessity of escape? Not the apparent confirmation of that
ugly legend concerning ghostly ponies driven up across The Hard garden
from the shore. From childhood, owing both to temperament and local
influences, her apprehension of things unseen and super-normal had been
remarkably acute. From the dawn of conscious intelligence these had
formed an integral element in the atmosphere of her life; and that
without functional disturbance, moral or physical, of a neurotic sort.
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