If he came and looked into her face with those clear eyes of his,
he might read in hers that she loved him. How dreadful that would be!
Yes, she must search yet deeper. She had heard the glad ring in his voice
when he met her, and said, "Elizabeth!" She had seen his eyes. He was in
danger himself. She knew it; she might not hide it from herself. She must
help him to be true to the woman to whom he was pledged, whom now he would
have to marry.
She must go away from it all. She would run away, now at once. It seemed
that she was always running away from some one. She would go back to the
mountains where she had started. She was not afraid now of the man from
whom she had fled. Culture and education had done their work. Religion had
set her upon a rock. She could go back with the protection that her money
would put about her, with the companionship of some good, elderly woman,
and be safe from harm in that way; but she could not stay here and meet
George Benedict in the morning, nor face Geraldine Loring on her
wedding-day. It would be all the same the facing whether she were in the
wedding-party or not. Her days of mourning for her grandmother would of
course protect her from this public facing. It was the thought she could
not bear. She must get away from it all forever.
Her lawyers should arrange the business. They would purchase the house
that Grandmother Brady desired, and then give her her money to build a
church.
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