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 CHAPTER XXIX

remained alone the whole evening.

She had opened both her bedroom-windows wide; and she looked out over the road into the sultry night. She had undressed and put on a white wrapper; and she remained sitting, in the dark room, at the open window.

For a moment, she thought that Van der Welcke would come to her, to tell her his decision; but he did not come. . . He seemed to be staying with Addie in the dining-room. . . Then she heard him go to his own room. . ..

In the silence, in the still, sultry darkness, which seemed to enter the room almost heavily, her restlessness, the doubt which she had felt rising in herself, during those few words with Addie, melted away. Sitting at the open window, she let herself be borne along by the silent, insidious magic of the late summer hour, as though something stronger than herself were overpowering her and compelling her to surrender herself, without further thinking or doubting, to a host of almost disquieting raptures, which came crowding in upon her. ..

Above the darkling masses of the Woods hung the sullen menace of heavy rain; and, just once or twice, there was a gleam of lightning yonder, in the