e dim
shadows, and the mirror upon the dressing-table took upon itself a
mysterious air, as though in its depths one might read something of the
hidden future. All was sunk in a sorrowful gloom, and the
barely-outlined recumbent figure of Gaga might have been that of a dead
man. Upon tiptoe, Sally stole quietly from the room. For a little while
she sat alone over a fire which had been lighted in the drawing-room;
but the evening was beginning to cast darkness over everything; and in
the west the last hot reflections of the sun were cast upon two or
three casual clouds. Sally therefore rose, and took her hat and coat,
which were lying near the piano. As it was the middle of the week, and
in autumn, the hotel was almost empty, and would not be occupied with
any visitors for two or three more days. It was a dull place once the
sun had set. For a moment Sally hesitated in putting on her hat; but at
last she ventured forth, and was out in the greying street, and upon the
bridge across the river. The water, as she hurried by, ran silently
below, blackened and threatening, and as there would be no moon the
night was coming with great darkness. Over the bridge Sally noticed the
early lights in the post office, and a few street lamps. One road ran a
little way up the hill and was immediately checked by houses. Another
turned off to the north-west, and it was here that she would find a shop
at which she could leave the prescription for Gaga's medicine. Once she
had performed her task Sally walked briskly on until she came to the end
of the houses and into a road to the edges of which trees grew and grass
came irregularly running. Beneath the trees darkness already obliterated
all shape, and the fringes of the wood were so bare of leafage that she
could already look up to the grey sky between the boughs and their filmy
branches. No vehicles passed. She was alone upon this broad road, with
nothing upon either hand but unexplored depths of shadow and silence.
Every now and then a stationary light spotted the dusk. She was appalled
by her loneliness.

Quickly as she had walked away from Penterby, Sally returned to the town
with even greater speed, warmed by the exercise, but chilled by her
thoughts and perplexities. When she was alone, and so hemmed in by
sinister darkness, Sally was brought quickly back to her forebodings.
She remembered the solitary figure which she had left, and thought of
Gaga was shrinking. Of Toby she could onl