Wilkie Collins

The Law and the Lady Wilkie Collins

Book Excerpt: ...r his voice. I had fancied, honestly fancied, myself to have been in love often and often before this time. Never in any other man's company had I felt as I now felt in the presence of this man. Night seemed to fall suddenly over the evening landscape when he left me. I leaned against the Vicarage gate. I could not breathe, I could not think; my heart fluttered as if it would fly out of my bosom--and all this for a stranger! I burned with shame; but oh, in spite of it all, I was so happy!And now, when little more than a few weeks had passed since that first meeting, I had him by my side; he was mine for life! I lifted my head from his bosom to look at him. I was like a child with a new toy--I wanted to make sure that he was really my own. He never noticed the action; he never moved in his corner of the carriage. Was he deep in his own thoughts? and were they thoughts of Me?I laid down my head again softly, so as not to disturb him. My thoughts wandered backward once more, and sClose...