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Adam Bede by George Eliot
Book, page 161 / 550


other voice which said that Hetty was weary, and that going to her
now in an unseasonable moment would only tend to close her heart
more obstinately. Dinah was not satisfied without a more
unmistakable guidance than those inward voices. There was light
enough for her, if she opened her Bible, to discern the text
sufficiently to know what it would say to her. She knew the
physiognomy of every page, and could tell on what book she opened,
sometimes on what chapter, without seeing title or number. It was
a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the edges. Dinah laid it
sideways on the window ledge, where the light was strongest, and
then opened it with her forefinger. The first words she looked at
were those at the top of the left-hand page: "And they all wept
sore, and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him." That was enough
for Dinah; she had opened on that memorable parting at Ephesus,
when Paul had felt bound to open his heart in a last exhortation
and warning. She hesitated no longer, but, opening her own door
gently, went and tapped on Hetty's. We know she had to tap twice,
because Hetty had to put out her candles and throw off her black
lace scarf; but after the second tap the door was opened
immediately. Dinah said, "Will you let me come in, Hetty?" and
Hetty, without speaking, for she was confused and vexed, opened
the door wider and let her in.

What a strange contrast the two figures made, visible enough in
that mingled twilight and moonlight! Hetty, her cheeks flushed
and her eyes glistening from her imaginary drama, her beautiful
neck and arms bare, her hair hanging in a curly tangle down her
back, and the baubles in her ears. Dinah, covered with her long
white dress, her pale face full of subdued emotion, almost like a
lovely corpse into which the soul has returned charged with
sublimer secrets and a sublimer love. They were nearly of the
same height; Dinah evidently a little the taller as she put her
arm round Hetty's waist and kissed her forehead.

"I knew you were not in bed, my dear," she said, in her sweet
clear voice, which was irritating to Hetty, mingling with her own
peevish vexation like music with jangling chains, "for I heard you
moving; and I longed to speak to you again to-night, for it is the
last but one that I shall be here, and we don't know what may
happen to-morrow to keep us apart. Shall I sit down with you

 
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