Between the Dark and the Daylight by William Dean Howells
page 50 of 181 (27%)
page 50 of 181 (27%)
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times for mere self-preservation's sake; but there was always a lurking
anxiety, which, though he refused to let it define itself to him, shortened the time and space he tried to put between them. One afternoon in April, when he left her sleeping, he was aware of somewhat recklessly placing himself out of reach in a lonely excursion to a village demolished by the earthquake of 1887, and abandoned himself, in the impressions and incidents of his visit to the ruin, to a luxury of impersonal melancholy which the physician cannot often allow himself. At last, his care found him, and drove him home full of a sharper fear than he had yet felt since the first days. But Mr. Gerald was tranquilly smoking under a palm in the hotel garden, and met him with an easy smile. "She woke once, and said she had had such a pleasant dream. Now she's off again. Do you think we'd better wake her for dinner? I suppose she's getting up her strength in this way. Her sleeping so much is a good symptom, isn't it?" Lanfear smiled forlornly; neither of them, in view of the possible eventualities, could have said what result they wished the symptoms to favor. But he said: "Decidedly I wouldn't wake her"; and he spent a night of restless sleep penetrated by a nervous expectation which the morning, when it came, rather mockingly defeated. Miss Gerald appeared promptly at breakfast in their pavilion, with a fresher and gayer look than usual, and to her father's "Well, Nannie, you _have_ had a nap, this time," she answered, smiling: "Have I? It isn't afternoon, is it?" "No, it's morning. You've napped it all night." |
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