Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/384

Rh dying there, as the sun dropped westward and night came.

She felt no chill of evening- She felt neither hunger nor thirst. Crowds of weeping people hung about in the gardens below. She heard nothing that passed round her, save the few words of her old friend, when from time to time he came and told her that there was no change.

The moon rose, and its light fell on the stone of the terrace, and through the vast deserted chambers opening from it; on the grey worn marbles of the statues, and on the pale angels of the frescoes.

It was ten o'clock: the chimes of the convent above on the mountains told every hour. Unceasingly she paced to and fro, to and fro, like some mad, or wounded creature. The silence and serenity of the night, the balmy fragrance of it, and the silvery light, were so much mockery of her wretchedness. She had never thought that there could be agony like thisand yet from heaven no sign!

Nearly another hour had passed before her friend approached her again. She caught the