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322 at ease as her body. Finally, towards evening, Elizabeth gave her, by the doctor's order, a composing draught, and she fell asleep. Then Elizabeth, whose room was next her friend's, left her, and went down to dinner. Alaric was not there, and she was almost glad of it. The doctor had told them both that day that they must be prepared for the end at any moment. The strong man had gone out to commune with his own heart in solitude. Elizabeth could better endure the amiable commonplaces of the clergyman and his spouse, the purring curiosity of the spinster with the knitting, the gloom of the inexplicable man, than she could have talked to Alaric jast then. Her heart was very heavy—heavy with sorrow so complicated that it was difficult to speak to him, of all people in the world, of her sense of personal loss in his impending grief

After dinner she went and stood outside the door, in the clear moonlight. It was bitter cold, but the wind had dropped, and, with a shawl over her head, it revived her to feel the sharp snow-laden air against her cheek, after the heated dining-room. The trees stood out as if carved in bronze against the snowy roofs below, and blue heavens, sown with stars, above. The moon was at its full; she could have read a letter by its Ught. The shadow of every leaf on the interlacing boughs lay black upon the snow, and on the gravel path, which had been swept in front of the door.

Presently she was conscious that, among the motionless shadows, one shadow in the distance moved—that it was drawing near. The figure casting this shadow was not distinctly visible at first, while upon her the moon shone full. But, when he came out from under the trees, she