The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
"It is certainly very strange, Cousin," she said; "very strange indeed. It is one of the
most extraordinary things in life that one person should love so much, and suffer so
keenly, and another should feel — nothing!"
She spoke passionately, but presently went on in an altered tone. "I do not say, however,
that Rachel feels nothing. She is changed — I do not think she is really happy."
"She was laughing very gaily when they carried her away," said Simon. “They had
made a wager, and
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they carried her away in this Brummers sedan-chair. It was by her own wish — but I
was surprised. I did not think that Rachel would have lent herself to such things. She
was so shocked and so unhappy once at being made the subject of a wager. She must
indeed be changed. And yet I cannot feel that all this folly is more than surface deep.
The real Rachel is my Rachel still."
He raised his head now, and crossed the room to the hearth. "I must speak with her,
Bertha," he said. "I must see her alone. Will you contrive a meeting for us here?"
He was looking down absently upon Bertha's face, and suddenly saw it glow with
colour, but never knew that it was not the heat of the fire which had called up that flush.
“Would it be so very difficult?” he inquired, wondering at her long silence.
"A little difficult, perhaps," said Bertha; "but it may yet be managed. My brother would
not have me ask Rachel to the house. He seems to hate her now as much as he once
liked her. He and a certain Sir Walter Brooke are never done abusing her. There were
some horrid, vulgar verses printed about her some time ago which Sir Walter sent to my
brother, and which Edward took with him to London. Indeed, I fear Rachel has many
enemies: her own cousin, who should by right protect her, is one of the first to spread
tales about her."
"Madam Charnock was right," thought Simon. "It was Humphrey who sent her that
libellous paper. Perhaps he obtained it from Edward Gifford."
A burning resentment took possession of him: how was it possible that these two men,
who had known Rachel in all the glory of her spring-like bloom and freshness, who had