"Come hither to the window," he said, with a sigh. "Here is the
dawn."
And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky
was full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the
valley underneath was flooded with a grey reflection. A few thin
vapours clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding
course of the river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of
stillness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once
more to crow among the steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who had
made so horrid a clangour in the darkness not half-an-hour before,
now sent up the merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little
wind went bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the
windows. And still the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of
the east, which was soon to grow incandescent and cast up that red-
hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.
Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had
taken her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.
"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then, illogically
enough: "the night has been so long! Alas, what shall we say to
my uncle when he returns?"
"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.
She was silent.
"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance,
"you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough
that I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air
as lay a finger on you without your free and full consent.
Pages:
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365