eBooks Base 2000

That her
sacred secret, for instance, might be no more than a _secret de
Polichinelle_ suspected by many, did not, so far, occur to her.
Believing it to be her exclusive property, therefore, she, inspired by
tender cunning, strove manfully to keep it so. To that end she made play
with the purely physical miseries of her indisposition.--With shivering
fits and scorching flushes, cold aching limbs and burning, aching head.
With the manifold distractions of errant blood which, leaving her heart
empty as a turned-down glass, drummed in her ears and throbbed behind her
eyeballs. These discomforts were severely real enough, in all conscience,
to excuse her for being self-occupied and a trifle selfish; to justify a
blank refusal to receive Theresa Bilson, or attempt to retail and discuss
the events of yesterday. All she craved was quiet, to be left alone, to
lie silent in the quiet light of the covered grey day.
In the earlier hours of it, silver rain showers travelled across the sea
to spend themselves, tearfully, against the panes of her bedroom
windows.


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