The decay of Shadrach Furnace showed
absolute against the crashing miles of industry on the broad river. A
breath of honeysuckle lifted to Howat Penny; the sky was primrose.
Mariana moved closer to him and took his arm. They said nothing.
A warm light was spilling across the darkening grass from the lower
windows of his dwelling, blurring in a dusk under the high leafage of
aged maples. The white roses were already in bud on the vine climbing
the lattices at his door, and Mariana fixed one in his buttonhole.
"Howat," she said, "it isn't as if you were doing it just for Jim, but
for a man, any man, really sick. I'll not even ask you to think of it
for me. He can sit on the porch and converse with your owls, and poke
about over the hills."
Howat considered the advisability of attempting to extract a promise
from her that she would stay away from Shadrach if James Polder was
there. He considered it--very momentarily. The possibility, he asserted
to himself, was without any alleviating circumstance. What, in heaven's
name, would Charlotte think if, as it well might, the knowledge came to
her that Mariana and a Polder--that name she never repeated--a married
Polder without his wife, were poking over the hills together at
Shadrach? She would have him, Howat, examined for lunacy.
Pages:
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386