When she a few moments later leaned
toward him with timidity and hesitation, offering him an open
prayer-book, he took it coldly and laid it between them on the
cushion. Isabel shuddered: her new knowledge of evil so cruelly
opened her eyes to the full understanding of so much.
Little rime was left for sympathy with Kate. Nearer the pulpit was
another pew from which her thoughts had never been wholly
withdrawn. She had watched it with the fascination of abhorrence;
and once, feeling that she could not bear to see him come in with
his mother and younger brother, she had started to leave the
church. But just then her grandmother had bustled richly in,
followed by her aunt; and more powerful with Isabel already than
any other feeling was the wish to bury her secret--Rowan's
secret--in the deepest vault of consciousness, to seal it up
forever from the knowledge of the world.
The next moment what she so dreaded took place. He walked quietly
down the aisle as usual, opened the pew for his mother and brother
with the same courtesy, and the three bent their heads together in
prayer.
"Grandmother," she whispered quickly, "will you let me pass! I am
not very well, I think I shall go home."
Her grandmother, not heeding and with her eyes fixed upon the same
pew, whispered in return;
"The Merediths are here," and continued her satisfying scrutiny of
persons seated around.
Isabel herself had no sooner suffered the words to escape than she
regretted them.
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