Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/162

 night. The clouds were heavy: there was a sort of hush in the air. There was only just light enough in the little town to make deeper by contrast the circle of the hills. The flowers scented the air more strongly still than at sunset: they were heavy with great dews.

All was so quiet. Everyone was in the ballroom or the card-room. The casements stood wide open in the deserted houses. Here and there the little coloured lamps glimmered. Here and there a woman leaned from a balcony.

I went on down the avenue of Marteau.

In the stillness I could hear the brook running over the stones, and the rustle of the leaves in the water as the wind stirred them.

I looked up at the windows of my little rooms. The light shone through their green shutters. The vine that climbed around them was dark against the reflection. I looked up, and, though I had known little of God in the life that I had led, I blessed Him.

Yes, I blessed God that night.

I opened the door, and went up the stairs, and entered my own chamber. I looked for her in her accustomed place, near the lamp, in the alcove, where the great jar of white roses stood. She was not there.