The moon shone brightly through the window of Ada Lee's bedroom as she
seated herself thoughtfully by her dressing-table. She had extinguished
her light, and, attracted by the soft sea of silvery mist spread before
her sight over the marsh, she gazed dreamily out, watching the play of
the moonbeams upon the wreathing vapour, now musing upon the past, now
upon the present, and at last letting her eyes fall upon the green lawn
beneath the window--one of about half-a-dozen, looking out upon that
side of the old ivy-covered rectory. The trees cast dark,
massive-looking shadows here and there, while patches of the grass, and
now and then a flower-bed stood out, bathed in the soft light.
How long she sat there musing she could not tell, but her reverie was
rudely broken by the sight of a dark figure coming forth from amidst the
shrubs upon her left, to stand for a moment gazing up at the house.
Her heart beat violently, and a strange swimming sensation made blurred
and indistinct the moonlit scene; but when, approaching more nearly to
the window-pane, she gazed anxiously out, the dark figure had
disappeared; there was nothing visible but the shadows cast by tree and
shrub, and, hastily casting aside her fears, she smiled, telling herself
that it was but fancy.
What could any one want there at that time of the night? Burglars?
Absurd, they would not openly show themselves while there were lights
about the house, and even then it was not likely that they would cross
the lawn. If not a creation of her brain, it was most probably one of
Sir Murray Gernon's keepers out upon his rounds, and taking a short cut
to some copse or preserve.
But for all that, Ada Lee sat long watching from her window. The
painful beating of her heart was still there, and a cloud of fancies
kept flitting through her brain. Strange, wild fancies they were, such
as she could not have explained; but, in spite of her efforts, troublous
enough to make the tears flow silently from her eyes as she recalled,
she knew not why, the heart-aches of the past, and the battle she had
had with self to hide from every eye the suffering she had endured.
Again and again, as she rose from her seat by the window and paced up
and down the room, she tried to drive away these troubled thoughts, but
they were too strong for her, and at last, raging against her weakness
the while, she burst into a passionate flood of tears--passionate as any
shed by her friend that night, as she threw herself, sobbing, by the
bedside.
"There! now I hope you'll be better!" she exclaimed, apostrophising
herself in a half-sad, half-bantering spirit. "What we poor weak women
would do without a good cry now and then, I'm sure I don't know. Well,
it's better to have it now than to break down to-morrow at the altar.
But a nice body I am to be preaching to poor little Marion about being
weak and childish, for there really is a something at these times that
is too much for our poor little weak spirits. I wonder whether men are
nervous, or whether they feel it at all!"
Ada Lee's words were light, and she knew that she was trying to deceive
herself as she lay down to rest with a smile upon her lip; but when,
towards dawn, sleep did come, it was to oppress her with wild and
confused dreams, from one of which she awoke, trembling as if from some
great horror, but trying vainly to recall the vision. It was of trouble
and danger, but she knew no more; and it was with sleep effectually
banished from her pillow that she lay at last, waiting for the coming of
that eventful day.
Book 1, Chapter IV.