The Shadow of the East

The fascination of the old house was growing every moment more insistent, like a spell laid on her. She gave herself up to it, to the odd happiness it inspired. She felt it curiously familiar. A strange feeling came to her—it was as if from childhood she had been journeying and now come home. An absurd thought, but she loved it. She had never had a home, but for the next two years she could pretend. To pretend was easy. All her life she had lived in a land of dreams, tenanted with shadowy inhabitants of her own imagining—puppets who moved obedient to her will through all the devious paths of make-believe; a spirit world where she ranged free of the narrow walls that restricted her liberty. It had been easy to pretend in the convent—how much easier here in the solid embodiment of a dream castle and stimulated by the real human affection for which her heart had starved. The love she had hitherto known had been unsatisfying, too impersonal, too restrained, too interwoven with mystical devotion. Mass Craven’s affection was of a hardier, more practical nature. Blunt candour and sincerity personified, she did not attempt to disguise her attachment. She had been attracted, had approved, and had finally co-opted Gillian into the family. She had, moreover, great faith in her own judgment. And to justify that faith Gillian would have gone through fire and water.