Rhona, by Mrs. Forrester

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879. Excerpt: ... 160 CHAPTER VII. THE HUSBAND S BETURN. /OLONEL DORIAN was on his way -' home. He would be back in a fortnight. Was Rhona glad? Was she sorry? How did she feel about it? She could hardly have told; her mind was almost a blank on the subject. If anything, she felt rather a dread, a shrinking from the thought of meeting him. No longer was she subject to those passionate fits of anger against him or the passionate longingto see him, if became--well--if he stayed away--well--it seemed little matter to her. But every day that brought him nearer brought nearer, too, the time when Jack would be gone into exile, and that thought fell like a drop of molten lead upon her heart. She strove agonisingly hard to forget him, she refused to allow her mind to dwell upon him; and yet she could not banish him altogether. And when she thought of him, it was always as the man who might have made her life happy if Fate had thrown them together earlier. Sometimes a wild longing would come over her to see him once more, only once; to bid him a last good-bye; she was on the verge of writing to him, it was only by throwing herself on her knees and praying with agonised intensity to be delivered from this temptation that she restrained herself. One day as she drove along Pall Mall in her brougham she caught sight of him: in a moment her hand was on the check-string, but as suddenly abandoning her intention, she flung herself back into the corner of the carriage, her heart beating, her face dyed with crimson blushes. He did not see her. VOL. III. M The days went on, it was the day before her husband was to return. She kept asking herself why she was not glad, why her heart was so heavy within her, why she could not stir herself up to feel pleasure at the thought of his homecoming? On...