The significance of the action was lost on
him.
"Yes," she continued, returning to a subject which furnished both an escape
and a concealment of her feelings, "I have been revisiting my girlhood. You
love Kentucky but I cannot make myself over."
Her face grew full of the finest memories and all the fibres of her nature
were becoming more unstrung. He had made sure of his strength before he had
ever dared see her this day, had pitted his self-control against every
possible temptation to betray himself that could arise throughout their
parting; and it was this very composure, so unlocked for, that unconsciously
drove her to the opposite extreme. Shades of colour swept over her neck and
brow, as though she were setting under wind-tossed blossoming peach boughs.
Her lustrous, excited eyes seemed never able to withdraw themselves from his
whitened solemn face. Its mute repressed suffering touched her; its
calmness filled her with vague pain that at such a time he could be so calm.
And the current of her words ran swift, as a stream loosened at last from
some steep height."Sometime you might be in that part of Virginia. I should
like you to know the country there and the place where my father's house
stood.
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