pressing like two hostile powers
that battled for his body. They shrieked in his ears, plucked at his
fingers. He heard them hushing deeply as he went to his pistol-case, and
drew forth one--he knew not which.

CHAPTER LVI

On a wild April morning, Emilia rose from her bed and called to mind a
day of the last year's Spring when she had watched the cloud streaming
up, and felt that it was the curtain of an unknown glory. But now it wore
the aspect of her life itself, with nothing hidden behind those stormy
folds, save peace. South-westward she gazed, eyeing eagerly the struggle
of twisting vapour; long flying edges of silver went by, and mounds of
faint crimson, and here and there a closing space of blue, swift as a
thought of home to a soldier in action. The heavens were like a
battle-field. Emilia shut her lips hard, to check an impulse of prayer
for Merthyr fighting in Italy: for he was in Italy, and she once more
among the Monmouth hills: he was in Italy fighting, and she chained here
to her miserable promise! Three days after she had given the promise to
Wilfrid, Merthyr left, shaking her hand like any common friend. Georgiana
remained, by his desire, to protect her. Emilia had written to Wilfrid
for release, but being no apt letter-writer, and hating the task, she was
soon involved by him in a complication of bewildering sentiments, some of
which she supposed she was bound to feel, while perhaps one or two she
did feel, at the summons. The effect was that she lost the true wording
of her blunt petition for release: she could no longer put it bluntly.
But her heart revolted the more, and gave her sharp eyes to see into his
selfishness. The purgatory of her days with Georgiana, when the latter
was kept back from her brother in his peril, spurred Emilia to renew her
appeal; but she found that all she said drew her into unexpected traps
and pitfalls. There was only one thing she could say plainly: "I want to
go." If she repeated this, Wilfrid was ready with citations from her
letters, wherein she had said 'this,' and 'that,' and many other phrases.
His epistolary power and skill in arguing his own case were creditable to
him. Affected as Emilia was by other sensations, she could not combat the
idea strenuously suggested by him, that he had reason to complain of her
behaviour. He admitted his special faults, but, by distinctly tracing
them to their origin, he complacently hinted the excuse for them.
Moreover, and