Still holding Faircloth's hand, and still silent, her shoulder touching
his now and again in walking, Damaris went down the sloping path, hoary
lichen-stained head-and-foot stones set in the vivid churchyard grass--as
yet unbleached by the cold of winter--on either side. The sense of his
strength, of the fine unblemished vigour of his young manhood, here
close beside her--so strangely her possession and portion of her natural
inalienable heritage--filled her with confident security and with a
restful, wondering calm. So that the shame publicly put on her to shed
its bitterness, her horror of the watching crowd departed, fading out
into unreality. Though still shaken, still quivering inwardly from the
ordeal of the past hour, she already viewed that shame and horror as but
accidents to be lived down and disregarded, by no means as essential
elements in the adventurous and precious whole. Presently they would
altogether lose their power to wound and to distress her, while this
freedom and the closer union, gained by means of them, continued
immutable and fixed.
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