Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/231

Rh her favour. Not so; the heavy step passed heavily onward; and again she sank amid the cushions of the chair. There she sat, wan as a statue, and motionless, save when a quick convulsive shudder, as if of pain, ran through her frame. It was awful to watch the change one single evening had wrought in that beautiful face. The eyes were hollow; the features thin, as if suddenly contracted; and her brow had a slight frown, knit either with suffering, or rigid determination. A clock, striking two in the distance, startled her; and, rising, she approached the window. The dew had risen heavily on the plants in the balcony; and the moonlight turned the park below into one sheet of tremulous silver. All was silent as the grave, excepting that hollow murmur, which never, even in its stillest hour, quite forsakes a great city. The trees stood dark, and not a leaf stirred on the heavy branches; but amidst them rose the stately abbey, the Gothic architecture gleaming, "like ebon and ivory," in the clear