And the revulsion of feeling was so sharp, the shock at once so
staggering and intimate--as summing up all the last ten days confused
experience--that Damaris could not control herself. She turned away with
a wail of distress, threw out her hands, and then, covering her eyes with
them, bowed her head.
The young man came forward and stood near her; but an appreciable time
elapsed before he spoke. When he presently did so, his voice reached
her as again singularly familiar in tone, though strange in diction and
in accent.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," he began, "but I hailed you just now, and
you told me to come.--I concluded you meant what you said. Not, I'm
afraid, that your giving your permission or withholding it would have
made much difference in the upshot. Timothy Proud let on, in my hearing,
that he set you across the river soon after two o'clock, and that there'd
been no call for the ferry since. So I took one of my own boats and just
came over to look for you--in case you might have met with some mishap or
strayed among the sand-hills and couldn't find your"--
Thus far he spoke with studied calm and restraint.
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