Struan - A Novel (1898) (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: Ill POOR Jenny That second's impulsiveness cost her days and nights of suffering. What would he think of her, and what had made her do it ? He could only think that she was vulgar and fast and ridiculously conceited. Deeply as she searched her mind, she could find but two motives for this impulsive act, ? she was sorry and she was affectionate. These two feelings, which his words to her had quickened, had led to a sudden act, with which neither thought nor judgment had anything to do. But this he did not know, and perhaps he might think that she had dared ? She couldn't bring herself to put it into words, but the very thought of his conceiving her to be guilty of such an assumption made her wretched to the bottom of her soul. When the time for her next lesson came, she stayed away. She felt that she must brace herself to go on with her purpose, and, after this one interval, she would do it; but this one she felt to be necessary. It was a most unhappy morning; and, when theusual hour had come and gone, she began to repent what she had done. It might look as if she imagined that he would attach some importance to her comings and goings. She was sitting alone in her little boarding- house bedroom, feeling very desolate, when a servant came up to say that a gentleman wanted to see her. She knew no gentlemen, and never had visitors. Who could it be ? Neither card nor name had been sent up. A thought flashed through her mind, but she rejected it as impossible. A person so great and important had neither the time nor the interest to take this long journey up town for the sake of seeing her. It must of course be some one else. But it was not some one else. It was Struan himself, looking peculiarly out of place in the common little parlor, which his vivid personality ...