A pervasive stillness settled upon Shadrach; outside the sunlight lay on
the hills in a thick, yellow veil; the cool interior held only the
familiar crepitation of the old clock above. Now, he told himself, he
could read the papers peacefully; but he sat with empty hands. Mariana
had gone. "Outrageous conduct," he said aloud, without conviction. His
voice sounded thin, unfamiliar. His dreams of her continued superiority
to the commonplace, of her fine aloofness like the elevation of the
strains of _Orfeo_, had been utterly destroyed. He could not imagine a
greater descent than the one which had overtaken her. As he rehearsed
its details they seemed increasingly disgraceful. He could not forgive
James Polder for his relapse, his shocking failure to maintain the
standards, the obligations, bred into himself, Howat Penny, by so many
years, and by blood. It was that miserable old business of Jasper's once
more, blighting the present, betraying Mariana.
This wheeled in his brain throughout summer. He had, as he expected, no
word from her. Charlotte, too, sent no line; he was isolated in the
increasing and waning heat, in a sea of greenery growing heavy and grey
with dust, then swept by rain, and touched with the scarlet finality of
frost.
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