For a while, perhaps as long as an hour, she sat up in bed, reading. At last, however, she turned off the switch of her electric reading lamp, and, lying back in her old-fashioned four-post bed, she shut her eyes for a few moments. Then she opened them, widely, on to her moonlit room.
Opposite to where she lay the crescent-shaped bow-window was still open to the night air and the star-powdered sky. On that side of Freshley Manor2 the wide lawn sloped down to a belt of water meadows, and beyond the meadows there rose steeply a high, flat-topped ridge3.
Along this ridge Oliver Tropenell was now walking up and down smoking. Now and again his mother saw the shadow-like figure move across the line of her vision.
At one moment, last winter, she had feared that he would not be able to come back this year, as troubles had arisen among his cattle-men. But, as was Oliver's way, he had kept his promise. That he had been able to so do was in no small measure owing to his partner, Gilbert Baynton.
Gilbert Baynton—Laura Pavely's brother? Of that ne'er-do-weel Oliver had made from a failure a success; from a waster—his brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely, would have called him by a harsher name—an acute and a singularly successful man of business.
[Pg 24] Lying there, her brain working quickly in the darkness, Oliver's mother told herself that the Pavelys, both Godfrey and Laura, had indeed reason to be grateful, not only to Oliver, but to her, Oliver's mother! It was to please her, not them, that Oliver, long years ago, had accepted the dubious4 gift of Gilbert Baynton, and the small sum Gilbert's brother-in-law had reluctantly provided to rid himself of an intolerable incubus5 and a potential source of disgrace. Godfrey Pavely was certainly grateful, and never backward in expressing it. And Laura? Laura was one of your silent, inarticulate women, but without doubt Laura must be grateful too.
At last Oliver left the ridge, and Mrs. Tropenell went on gazing at the vast expanse of luminous6 sky which merged7 into the uplands stretching away for miles beyond the boundaries of her garden.
She lay, listening intently, and very soon she heard the cadence8 of his firm footfalls on the stone path below the window. Then came the quiet unlatching of the garden door. Now he was coming upstairs.
Her whole heart leapt out to him—and perchance it was this strong shaft9 of wordless longing10 that caused Oliver Tropenell's feet to linger as he was going past his mother's door.
Following a sudden impulse, she, who had trained herself to do so few things on impulse, called out, "Is that you, my darling?"
The door opened. "Yes, mother. Here I am. May I come in?"
He turned and shut out the bright electric light on the landing, and walked, a little slowly and uncertainly [Pg 25] in the darkness, towards where he knew the bed to be. For a moment she wondered whether she should turn on the lamp which was at her elbow, then some sure, secret instinct made her refrain.
She put out her hand, and pulled him down to her, and he, so chary11 of caress12, put his left arm round her.
"Mother?" he said softly. "This dear old room! It's years since I've been in this room—and yet from what I can see, it's exactly the same as it always was!"
And, as if answering an unspoken question, she spoke13 in very low tones, "Hardly altered at all since the day you were born here, my dearest, on the happiest day of my life."
His strong arm tightened14 about her a little, and, still looking straight before her, but leaning perhaps a little closer into the shelter of his arm, she said tremulously, inconsequently it might have seemed: "Oliver? Are you going to accept Lord St. Amant's invitation?"
With a sharp shoot of hidden pain she felt his movement of recoil15, but all he said was, very quietly, "I've not quite made up my mind, mother."
"It would give me pleasure if you were to do so. He has been a very good and loyal friend to me for a long, long time, my dear."
"I know that."
She waited a moment, then forced herself to go on: "You were never quite fair to St. Amant, Oliver."
"I—I feared him, mother."
And then, as she uttered an inarticulate murmur16 of pain and of protest, he went on quickly, "The fear didn't last very long—perhaps for two or three years. You see I was so horribly afraid that you were going [Pg 26] to marry him." In the darkness he was saying something he had never meant, never thought to say.
And she answered, "It was a baseless fear."
"Was it? I wonder if it was! Oh, of course I know you are telling me the truth as you see it now—but, but surely, mother?"
"Surely no, Oliver. It is true that St. Amant wished, after his wife's death, that I should marry him, but he soon saw that I did not wish it, that nothing was further from my wish—then."
"Then?" he cried. "What do you mean, mother? Lady St. Amant only died when I was fifteen!"
"I would like to tell you what I mean. And after I have told you, I wish never to speak of this subject to you again. But I owe it to myself as well as to you, to tell you the truth, Oliver. Where is your hand?" she said, "let me hold it while I tell you."
And then slowly and with difficulty she began speaking, with a hesitation17, a choosing of her words, which were in sharp contrast to her usual swift decision.
"I want to begin by telling you," her voice was very low, "that according to his lights—the lights of a man of the world and of, well yes, of an English gentleman—St. Amant behaved very well as far as I was concerned. I want you to understand that, Oliver, to understand it thoroughly18, because it's the whole point of my story. If St. Amant had behaved less well, I should have nothing to tell—you."
She divined the quiver of half-shamed relief which went through her son. It made what she wished to say at once easier and more difficult.
"As I think you know, I first met St. Amant when [Pg 27] I was very young, in fact before I was 'out,' and he was the first really clever, really attractive, and, in a sense, really noted19 man I had ever met. And then"—she hesitated painfully.
"And then, mother?" Oliver's voice was hard and matter-of-fact. He was not making it easy for her.
"Well, my dear, very very soon, he made of me his friend, and I was of course greatly flattered, but at that time, in the ordinary sense of the word, St. Amant never made love to me." She went on more firmly. "Of course I soon came to know that he cared for me in a way he did not care for the other women with whom his name was associated. I knew very soon too, deep in my heart, that if his wife—his frivolous20, mean-natured, tiresome21 wife—died, he certainly would wish to marry me, and for years, Oliver, for something like six years, I daily committed murder in my heart."
And then something happened which troubled and greatly startled the woman who was making this painful confession22. Her son gave a kind of cry—a stifled23 cry which was almost a groan24. "God! How well I understand that!" he said.
"Do you, Oliver—do you? And yet I, looking back, cannot understand it! All that was best, indeed the only good that was in St. Amant to give I had then, and later, after I became a widow, I had it again."
"I suppose he was much the same then as later, or—or was he different then, mother?"
She knew what he meant. "He was the same then," she said quietly, "but somehow I didn't care! Girls were kept so ignorant in those days. But of course [Pg 28] the whole world knew he was a man of pleasure, and in time I grew to know it too. But still it wasn't that which made me unhappy, for I did not realise what the phrase meant, still less what was implied by it. But even so, as time went on I was very unhappy. Mine was a false position—a position which hurt my pride, and, looking back, I suppose that there must have soon been a certain amount of muffled25 talk. If I was not jealous, other women were certainly jealous of me."
She waited for a few moments; the stirring of these long-dead embers was hurting her more than she would have thought possible.
At last she went on: "Sometimes months would pass by without our meeting, but he wrote to me constantly, and on his letters—such amusing, clever, and yes, tender letters—I lived. My aunt, my father, both singularly blind to the state of things, were surprised and annoyed that I didn't marry, and, as for me, I grew more and more unhappy."
"Poor mother!" muttered Oliver. And she sighed a sigh of rather piteous relief. She had not thought he would understand.
"I don't know what I should have done but for two people, your father, who of course was living here then, our nearest neighbour, and, what meant very much more to me just then, Laura's mother, Alice Tropenell. Though she was only a very distant relation, she was like a daughter in this house. Alice was my one friend. She knew everything about me. She was—well, Oliver, I could never tell you what she was to me then!"
[Pg 29] "I suppose," he said slowly, "that Laura is like her?"
"Laura?" Mrs. Tropenell could not keep the surprise out of her low voice. "Oh no, my dear, Laura is not in the least like her mother. But Laura's child is very like Alice—even now."
"Laura's child?" Oliver Tropenell visioned the bright, high-spirited, merry little girl, who somehow, he could not have told her why, seemed often to be a barrier between himself and Laura.
"Alice—my friend Alice—was full of buoyancy, of sympathy for every living thing. She possessed26 what I so much lacked in those days, and still alas27! lack—sound common-sense. And yet she, too, had her ideals, ideals which did not lead her into a very happy path, for Robert Baynton, high-minded though he may have been, was absorbed in himself—there was no room for any one else." Had she been telling her story to any one but her son, Mrs. Tropenell would have added, "Laura is very like him."
Instead, she continued, "No one but Alice would have made Robert Baynton happy, or have made as good a thing of the marriage as she did—for happy they were. I think it was the sight of their happiness that made me at last long for something different, for something more normal in my life than that strange, unreal tie with St. Amant. So at last, when I was four-and-twenty, I married your father." Oliver remained silent, and she said a little tremulously, "He was very, very good to me. He made me a happy woman. He gave me you."
There was a long, long pause. Mrs. Tropenell had [Pg 30] now come to what was the really difficult part of the task she had set herself.
"You are thinking, my boy, of afterwards." And as she felt him move restlessly, she went on pleadingly, "As to that, I ask you to remember that I was very lonely after your father died. Still, if you wish to know the real truth"—she would be very honest now—"that friendship which you so much disliked stood more in the way of your having a stepfather than anything else could have done."
"I see that now," he said sombrely, "but I did not see it then, mother."
"Even if Lady St. Amant had not lived on, as she did, all those years, I should not have married St. Amant—I think I can say that in all sincerity28. So you see, Oliver, you need not have been afraid, when at last he became free."
She sighed a long, unconscious sigh of relief.
"I gather you still see him very often when he's at Knowlton Abbey?"
"Yes, it's become a very comfortable friendship, Oliver. But for St. Amant I should often feel very lonely, my dear."
She longed to go on—to tell Oliver how hard it had been for her to build up her life afresh—after he had finally decided29 to stay on in Mexico. But she doubted if he would understand....
Suddenly he turned and kissed her.
"Good-night," he said. "I'm grateful to you for having told me all—all that you have told me, mother."
Oliver Tropenell hurried up the silent house. By his own wish the large garret to which he had removed all [Pg 31] his own treasures and boyish belongings30 after a delicate childhood spent in a room close to his mother's, was still in his room, and it had been very little altered.
It was reached by a queer, narrow, turning staircase across which at a certain point a beam jutted31 out too low. Tropenell never forgot to duck his head at that point—indeed he generally remembered as he did so how proud he had been the first time he had found himself to be too tall to pass under it straightly! But, strange to say, to-night he did forget—and for a moment he saw stars.... Fool! Fool that he was to allow his wits to go wool-gathering in this fashion!
With eyes still smarting, he leapt up the last few steps to the little landing which he shared with no one else. Opening the door he turned the switch of the lamp on the writing-table which stood at a right angle to the deep-eaved window.
Then he shut the door and locked it, and, after a moment of indecision, walked across to the book-case which filled up the space between the fireplace and the inner wall of the long, rafted room.
He did not feel in the mood to go to bed, and idly he let his eyes run over the long rows of books which he had read, in the long ago, again and again, for like most lonely boys he had been a great reader. They were a good selection, partly his mother's, partly his own, partly Lord St. Amant's. He knew well enough—he had always known, albeit32 the knowledge gave him no pleasure, that he had owed a great deal, as boy and man, to his mother's old friend. Lord St. Amant had really fine taste. It was he who had made Oliver read Keats, Blake, Byron, Poe, among poets; he who had actually given him Wuthering Heights, [Pg 32] Vanity Fair, The Three Musketeers, Ali Baba of Ispahan. There they were all together.
He had not taken his books with him when he had first gone to Mexico, for he had not meant to stay there. But at last he had written home to a great London bookseller and ordered fresh copies of all his old books at home. The bookseller had naturally chosen good editions, in some cases rare first editions. But those volumes had never been read, as some of these had been read, over and over and over again.
But now, to-night, he did not feel as if he could commune with any comfort even with one of these comfortable, unexacting friends. He felt too restless, too vividly33 alive. So suddenly he turned away from the bookcase, and looked about him. A large French box-bed had taken the place of the narrow, old-fashioned bedstead of his youth; and his mother had had moved up to this room a narrow writing-table from the study on the ground floor which no one ever used.
He walked over to that writing-table now, and sat down. On it, close to his left hand, stood a large despatch-box. He opened and took out of it a square sheet of paper on which was embossed his Mexican address. Drawing two lines across that address, and putting in the present date, September 19th, he waited, his pen poised34 in his hand for a full minute.
Then he began writing rather quickly, and this is what he wrote:—
"My dear Laura,—Godfrey suggests that I should act as your trustee, in succession to Mr. Blackmore. Am I to understand that this suggestion has your [Pg 33] approval? If yes, I will of course consent to act. But please do not think I shall be offended if you decide otherwise. You may prefer some woman of your acquaintance. Women, whatever Godfrey may tell you, make excellent men of business. They are, if anything, over-prudent, over-cautious where money is concerned; but that is a very good fault in a trustee."
His handwriting was small and clear, but he had left large spaces between the lines, and now he was at the end of the sheet of paper. There was just room for another sentence and his signature. He waited, hesitating and of two minds, till the ink was dry, and then he began again, close to the bottom of the sheet:—
"Before we meet again I wish to say one further thing."
He put this first sheet aside, and took another of the same size from the box by his side:—
"You said something to-day which affected35 me painfully. You spoke as if what I have done for your brother caused you to carry a weight of almost intolerable gratitude36. So far as any such feeling should exist between us, the gratitude should be on my side. In sober truth Gillie has been invaluable37 to me.
"I remain,
"Yours sincerely,"
Then very rapidly Oliver Tropenell made an "O" and a "T," putting the T across the O so that any one not familiar with his signature would be hard put to it to know what the two initials were.
[Pg 34] He read over the words he had just written. They seemed poor, inadequate38, and he felt strongly tempted39 to write the letter again, and word it differently. Then he shook his head—no, let it stand!
Slowly he put the second sheet of the letter aside, and placed the first one, on which the ink was dry, before him. Then he looked round, with a queer, furtive40 look, and, getting up, made sure the door was locked.
Coming back to the writing-table, he took out of the despatch-box lying there a small, square, crystal-topped flagon of the kind that fits into an old-fashioned dressing-case. The liquid in it was slightly, very slightly, coloured, and looked like some delicate scent1.
From the despatch-box also he now brought out a crystal penholder with a gold nib41. He dipped it in the flagon, and began to write in between the lines of the letter he had just written. As the liquid dried, the slight marks made by the pen on the paper vanished, for Oliver Tropenell was writing in invisible ink.
"The decks are cleared between us, Laura, for you know now that I love you. You said, 'Oh, but this is terrible!' Yes, Laura, love is terrible. It is not only cleansing42, inspiring, and noble, it is terrible also. Why is it that you so misunderstand, misjudge, the one priceless gift, the only bit of Heaven which God or Nature—I care not which—has given to man and woman? What you, judging by your words to-day, take to be love is as little like that passion as a deep draught43 of pure cold water to a man dying of thirst, is like the last glass of drugged beer imbibed44 by some poor sot already drunk."
[Pg 35] Oliver Tropenell waited awhile. There were still two spaces, before the bottom of the page of notepaper was reached, and again he dipped the pen into the strange volatile45 liquid.
"God bless you, my dear love," he wrote, "and grant you the peace which seems the only thing for which you crave46."
He waited till the words had quite vanished, and then he took up the two sheets of paper, folded them in half, and put them in a large envelope which fitted the paper when so folded. He wrote on the outside, "Mrs. Pavely, Lawford Chase."
And then, turning out the light with a quick, nervous gesture, he got up and went over to the long, low, garret window.
For a few moments he saw nothing but darkness, then the familiar scene unrolled below him and took dim shape in the starlit night.
Instinctively47 his sombre eyes sought the place where, far away to the right, was a dark patch of wood. It was there, set amidst a grove48 of high trees, that stood Lawford Chase, the noble old house which had been his mother's early home, and which now contained Laura Pavely, the woman to whom he had just written two such different letters, and who for nearly three months had never been out of his waking thoughts.
As his eyes grew more and more accustomed to the luminous darkness, he saw the group of elms under which this very day a word had unsealed the depths of his heart, and where he had had the agony of seeing [Pg 36] Laura shrink, shudder49, wilt50 as does a flower in a breath of hot, f?tid air, under his avowal51 of love.
Violently he put that memory from him, and staring out into the splendour of this early autumn night, he tried to recapture the mixture of feelings with which he had regarded Laura Pavely the first time they had met since her marriage—the first time indeed since she had been a shy, quiet little girl, and he an eager, highly vitalised youth, five years older than herself.
Looking back now he realised that what had predominated in his mind on that hot, languorous52 June afternoon was astonishment53 at her utter unlikeness to her brother, his partner, Gillie Baynton. It was an astonishment which warred with the beckoning55, almost uncanny, fascination56 which her gentle, abstracted, aloof57 manner effortlessly exercised over him. And yet she had been (he knew it now, he had not known it then) amazingly forthcoming—for her! As Mrs. Tropenell's son he would have had a right to Laura Pavely's regard, but he knew now that what had set ajar the portals of her at once desolate58 and burdened heart had been his kindness to, even his business relationship with, her brother.
Gillie Baynton? Yes, it was to that disconcerting and discordant59 human chord that their two natures—his and Laura's—had perforce vibrated and mingled60. Remembering this, Oliver Tropenell reproved himself for his past discontent with the partner who, whatever his failings, had always shown him both gratitude and a measure of such real affection as a man seldom shows another in a business relationship. In spite of Gillie's faults—nay, vices—he, Tropenell, now often found [Pg 37] himself favourably61 comparing Laura's brother with Laura's husband.
Oliver Tropenell was acutely, intolerably, jealous of Godfrey Pavely—jealous in the burning, scorching62 sense which is so often the terrible concomitant of such a passion as that which now possessed him. Godfrey Pavely's presence in his own house, his slightly tyrannical, often possessive attitude to Laura, the perpetual reminder63 that he was, after all, the father of the child Laura had borne, and who seemed to fill her heart to the exclusion64 of all else—all this was for this man who loved her an ever-recurring ordeal65 which might well have satisfied the sternest moralist.
That night Oliver Tropenell dreamt of Laura. He thought that he was pursuing her through a maze66 of flowering shrubs67 and trees. She was fleeing from him, yet now and again she would turn, and beckon54....
His first waking thought was that they would meet to-night—here, in his mother's house. But before that happened a long day would have to be lived through, for he had made up his mind not to go to The Chase till Laura again asked him to do so.
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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incubus
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| n.负担；恶梦 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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chary
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| adj.谨慎的，细心的 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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jutted
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| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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vividly
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poised
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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nib
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| n.钢笔尖；尖头 | |
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cleansing
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| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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imbibed
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| v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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languorous
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| adj.怠惰的，没精打采的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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beckon
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| v.(以点头或打手势)向...示意，召唤 | |
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beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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discordant
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| adj.不调和的 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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