Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/139



was a sky of soft, dusky blue, broken by the clear light of the stars: all about were the familiar walks of the villa garden, mysterious now in the darkness, and seeming to lead into infinite space. The lines of aloe, fig, and palm stood like shadows guarding a world of mystery. Daphne, wandering alone in the garden at midnight, half exultant, half afraid, stepped noiselessly along the pebbled walks with a feeling that that world was about to open for her. Ahead, through an arch where the thick foliage of the ilexes had been cut to leave the way clear for the passer-by, a single golden planet shone low in the west, and the garden path led to it.

Daphne had been unable to sleep, for sleeplessness had become a habit during the past