Traffic; The Story of a Faithful Woman (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IX Thkke days had passed since the Pattern, and the daily routine which, at Troy's Farm, had been diverted from the ordinary channels, had at length settled back again into its usual grooves. Bridget had slept off the effects of the holiday, and John had suffered from dull headaches that for the time being made him silent and morose. Nearly every beggar had left the village, and all that remained of the traces of the Pattern were the spotlessly whitewashed cottages and the carts that came from Anesk to fetch away the empty bottles from the various public-houses. To Nanno, perhaps, more than to any one, it had been a day that would not easily be forgotten. Her conversation with Jerningham, if it had not opened up new possibilities in life, had at least shown her a completely different state of existence from that which she had been accustomed to from her birth until then. It had nothing to do with her; she knew that. She could not imagine its ever being more than a sight of something which was quite beyond her reach; a glimpse through an unsheltered window into the house of one whose fortunes and customs could never be her own. Yet there it was; she had seen it. She was not aware that it was the result of civilization, the effect of education; but she fully realized that it was different from anything she had previously experienced. In speaking to her, as he had done on that night of the Pattern, Jerningham had seemed to be considering her before anything else?before himself. He had seen her shiver and asked her if she was cold. He had heard Bridget's drunken laughter, and asked her if that had driven her away from the cottage. It was absolutely unavoidable that she should compare him with Ryan. They were the two men uppermost in her thoughts. And the resul...