dBooks desire

The major talked for the party, and did not perceive, or
choose to perceive, what a gloom and silence pervaded the other two
sharers of the modest dinner. It was evening before Helen and Laura
came into the sitting-room to join the company there. She came in
leaning on Laura, with her back to the waning light, so that Arthur
could not see how palid and woe-stricken her face was, and as she went
up to Pen, whom she had not seen during the day, and placed her fond
arms on his shoulder and kissed him tenderly, Laura left her, and
moved away to another part of the room. Pen remarked that his mother's
voice and her whole frame trembled, her hand was clammy cold as she
put it up to his forehead, piteously embracing him. The spectacle of
her misery only added, somehow, to the wrath and testiness of the
young man. He scarcely returned the kiss which the suffering lady gave
him: and the countenance with which he met the appeal of her look was
hard and cruel. "She persecutes me," he thought within himself, "and
she comes to me with the air of a martyr.


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