SANCTUARY

BY

EDITH WHARTON




PART I


It is not often that youth allows itself to feel undividedly happy: the
sensation is too much the result of selection and elimination to be within
reach of the awakening clutch on life. But Kate Orme, for once, had yielded
herself to happiness; letting it permeate every faculty as a spring rain
soaks into a germinating meadow. There was nothing to account for this
sudden sense of beatitude; but was it not this precisely which made it
so irresistible, so overwhelming? There had been, within the last two
months--since her engagement to Denis Peyton--no distinct addition to
the sum of her happiness, and no possibility, she would have affirmed,
of adding perceptibly to a total already incalculable. Inwardly and
outwardly the conditions of her life were unchanged; but whereas, before,
the air had been full of flitting wings, now they seemed to pause over
her and she could trust herself to their shelter.

Many influences had combined to build up the centre of brooding peace in
which she found herself. Her nature answered to the finest vibrations,
and at first her joy in loving had been too great not to bring with it a
certain confusion, a readjusting of the whole scenery of life. She found