For, from
her first sight of him, had he not seemed to evoke that same sense of
remembrance, to be, like the reek off the mud-flats, already well-known,
something given back to her rather than newly discovered? She was still
ignorant as to who ho was or where he came from, having been far too
engrossed by mortification to pay any attention to the conversation
between her cousin and Jennifer during their little voyage down the
tide-river, and having disdained to make subsequent enquiries.--She had a
rooted dislike to appear curious or ask questions.--But now, reviewing
the whole episode, it broke in on her that the necessity for escape and
foreboding of danger, which culminated in her flight, actually dated
from the advent of this stranger rather than from Tom's request for
enlightenment concerning unaccountable noises heard in the small hours.
Damaris slipped her feet down off the leg-rest, and sat upright, tense
with the effort to grasp and disentangle the bearings of this revelation.
Was her search ended? Had she indeed detected the cause of her
discomfiture; or only pushed her enquiry back a step further, thus
widening rather than limiting the field of speculation? For what
conceivable connection, as she reflected, could the old lobster-catcher's
passenger have with any matter even remotely affecting herself!
Then she started, suddenly sensible of a comfortable, though warmly
protesting, human voice and presence at her elbow.
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