dark woods but I felt at home, and letting Dido go, she bounded on
before me as though she were young again, and I followed more sedately,
with an occasional glance back to see I was not followed.




CHAPTER X

THE TRAP


The sight of the red sun sinking down a long, green avenue turned my
thoughts for a moment from the painful memory of Richard Dawson's
rudeness, which, now that I had escaped from him, made me feel sick and
ashamed.

It was something I could never tell to anybody, and I felt as though I
must carry some shameful secret all my days and that it must appear in
my face, and I was glad that I need not meet the eyes of my grandparents
by daylight, but could deceive their dear, dim sight in the shaded
candle-light and afterwards have the night to recover myself.

With a young girl's extremity of virginal pride and modesty, I hated
even myself because he had touched me and could have disfigured the face
he had praised.

But the red sun glinting down the long arcades, promising another fine
day to-morrow, gave my thoughts a welcome turn. I remembered how it had
shone yesterday in the long line of windows at Brosna; and that led me