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276 She was now going down by that same little back staircase, almost longing to see a shadow and always thinking of Addie; but she saw nothing. White and as though walking in her sleep, she felt her way down the narrow little stairs. They creaked slightly. She next opened a door, leading into the long hall, which was like that of an old castle, so fine with its old wainscoting. The long Deventer carpet was paled by many years' traffic of feet; the front door seemed to vanish in the grey vista; on the oak cabinet the Delft jars gleamed dimly. . . . She walked in a waking dream on her noiseless slippers and now opened the door of the morning-room, all dark, with the blinds down—she was very white now in the darkness and could see her own whiteness—and she looked through the drawing-room into the conservatory, where Grannie was always accustomed to sit. The conservatory-windows showed faintly like transparent greynesses; and behind them, in the dawning light of very early morning, something of the dusk of the garden melted away: in the very early light it was all ash, the conservatory full of fading ash and the garden full of ash. Not an outline was visible as yet; and she gazed and gazed. . . and thought it so strange—and yet perhaps not so very strange—that such outlines as did stand out in the conservatory against the grey windows were motionless as the outlines of two dark shadows sitting each at a window, as it were an old man and an old woman, looking out at the birth of morning, which very far in the distance gave just a reflexion of paler twilight. . ..

Marietje now closed her eyes for an instant, then raised her lids again and stared at the conservatory; and it was always that: the outline of the dark, brooding shadows, so very similar to