. Those eyes of hers appeared as in a cloud, with the wrath above:
she had: the look of a Goddess in anger. He stammered, pleaded across her
flying shoulder--Oh! horrible, loathsome, pitiable to hear! . . . 'A
momentary aberration . . . her beauty . . . he deserved to be shot! . . .
could not help admiring . . . quite lost his head . . on his honour!
never again!'

Once in the roadway, and Copsley visible, she checked her arrowy pace for
breath, and almost commiserated the dejected wretch in her thankfulness
to him for silence. Nothing exonerated him, but at least he had the grace
not to beg secresy. That would have been an intolerable whine of a
poltroon, adding to her humiliation. He abstained; he stood at her mercy
without appealing.

She was not the woman to take poor vengeance. But, Oh! she was profoundly
humiliated, shamed through and through. The question, was I guilty of any
lightness--anything to bring this on me? would not be laid. And how she
pitied her friend! This house, her heart's home, was now a wreck to her:
nay, worse, a hostile citadel. The burden of the task of meeting Emma
with an open face, crushed her like very guilt. Yet she succeeded. After
an hour in her bedchamber she managed to lock up her heart and summon the
sprite of acting to her tongue and features: which ready attendant on the
suffering female host performed his liveliest throughout the evening, to
Emma's amusement, and to the culprit ex-dragoon's astonishment; in whom,
to tell the truth of him, her sparkle and fun kindled the sense of his
being less criminal than he had supposed, with a dim vision of himself as
the real proven donkey for not having been a harmless dash more so. But,
to be just as well as penetrating, this was only the effect of her
personal charm on his nature. So it spurred him a moment, when it struck
this doleful man that to have secured one kiss of those fresh and witty
sparkling lips he would endure forfeits, pangs, anything save the hanging
of his culprit's head before his Emma. Reflection washed him clean.
Secresy is not a medical restorative, by no means a good thing for the
baffled amorously-adventurous cavalier, unless the lady's character shall
have been firmly established in or over his hazy wagging noddle.
Reflection informed him that the honourable, generous, proud girl spared
him for the sake of the house she loved. After a night of tossing, he
rose right heartily repentant. He showed it in the best mann