Page 829 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

this position she could not have told you; but the twilight
had grown thick when she became aware that she was not
alone. She quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and
then saw what had become of her solitude. She was shar-
ing it with Caspar Goodwood, who stood looking at her, a
few yards off, and whose footfall on the unresonant turf, as
he came near, she had not heard. It occurred to her in the
midst of this that it was just so Lord Warburton had sur-
prised her of old.
She instantly rose, and as soon as Goodwood saw he
was seen he started forward. She had had time only to rise
when, with a motion that looked like violence, but felt like-
she knew not what, he grasped her by the wrist and made
her sink again into the seat. She closed her eyes; he had not
hurt her; it was only a touch, which she had obeyed. But
there was something in his face that she wished not to see.
That was the way he had looked at her the other day in the
churchyard; only at present it was worse. He said nothing at
first; she only felt him close to her-beside her on the bench
and pressingly turned to her. It almost seemed to her that no
one had ever been so close to her as that. All this, however,
took but an instant, at the end of which she had disengaged
her wrist, turning her eyes upon her visitant. ‘You’ve fright-
ened me,’ she said.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ he answered, ‘but if I did a little, no
matter. I came from London a while ago by the train, but
I couldn’t come here directly. There was a man at the sta-
tion who got ahead of me. He took a fly that was there, and
I heard him give the order to drive here. I don’t know who

829