Keeping to the turf, and favoured by the darkness of the night and
the patter of the rain which was now returning, though without
wind, I approached until I could almost have touched her. It
seemed a grossness of which I was incapable to break up her reverie
by speech. I stood and drank her in with my eyes; how the light
made a glory in her hair, and (what I have always thought the most
ravishing thing in nature) how the planes ran into each other, and
were distinguished, and how the hues blended and varied, and were
shaded off, between the cheek and neck. At first I was abashed:
she wore her beauty like an immediate halo of refinement; she
discouraged me like an angel, or what I suspect to be the next most
discouraging, a modern lady. But as I continued to gaze, hope and
life returned to me; I forgot my timidity, I forgot the sickening
pack of wet clothes with which I stood burdened, I tingled with new
blood.
Still unconscious of my presence, still gazing before her upon the
illuminated image of the window, the straight shadows of the bars,
the glinting of pebbles on the path, and the impenetrable night on
the garden and the hills beyond it, she heaved a deep breath that
struck upon my heart like an appeal.
'Why does Miss Gilchrist sigh?' I whispered. 'Does she recall
absent friends?'
She turned her head swiftly in my direction; it was the only sign
of surprise she deigned to make.
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