Читать книгу The Valley of Squinting Windows онлайн

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Then had followed quickly those lovely days in Dublin, she stopping with him as "Mrs. Henry Shannon" at a grand hotel. He had given her a wedding-ring, but while it remained upon her finger it was ever the little accusing symbol, filling her with an intense conviction of her sin.

This great adventure had marked the beginning of her acquaintance with the world beyond the valley, and, even now, through the gloom of her mood, she could remember it with a certain amount of gladness coming back to her mind. But it was queer that the brightest moment of her life should also have been the moment of darkest disaster.... She re-created the slight incidents of their quarrel. It was so strange of him after all the grand kindness he had just been showing her.... She had returned to the valley alone and with her disgrace already beginning to be heavy upon her.... She never saw Henry Shannon or spoke with him again. When she wrote referring distantly to their approaching marriage and making mention of the wedding-ring, the reply came back from Mr. Robinson, the solicitor in Garradrimna, who was his cousin and sporting companion. She knew how they had already begun to talk of her in the valley for having gone off to Dublin with Henry Shannon, and now, when an ugly word to describe her appeared there black and plain in the solicitor's letter, she felt, in blind shame, that the visit to Dublin had been planned to ruin her. The air of the valley seemed full of whispers to tell her that she had done a monstrous thing. Maybe they could give her jail for having done a thing like that, and she knew well that Henry Shannon's people would stop at nothing to destroy her, for they were a dark, spiteful crew. They were rich and powerful, with lawyers in the family, and what chance would she have in law now that every one was turned against her. So that night she went out when it was very dark and threw away the wedding-ring. The small, sad act appeared as the renunciation of her great ambition.