fond of a man," she said.
Emily stood still. She was quite silent. Her eyes slowly filled. She had
never been able to say much about what she felt for Walderhurst. Hers
was a large, dumb, primitive affection.
She sat at her open bedroom window a long time that evening. She rested
her chin upon her hand and looked up at the deeps of blue powdered with
the diamond dust of stars. It seemed to her that she had never looked up
and seen such myriads of stars before. She felt far away from earthly
things and tremulously uplifted. During the last two weeks she had lived
in a tumult of mind, of amazement, of awe, of hope and fear. No wonder
that she looked pale and that her face was full of anxious yearning.
There were such wonders in the world, and she, Emily Fox-Seton, no,
Emily Walderhurst, seemed to have become part of them.
She clasped her hands tight together and leaned forward into the night
with her face turned upwards. Very large drops began to roll fast down
her cheeks, one after the other. The argument of scientific observation
might have said she was hysterical, and whether with or without reason
is immaterial. She did not try to check her tears or wipe them away,
because she did not know that she was crying. She began to pray, and
heard herself saying the Lord's Prayer like a child.
"Our Father who art in Heaven--Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be
Thy name," she murmured imploringly.
She said the prayer to the end, and then began it over again. She said
it three or four times, and her appeal for daily bread and the
forgiveness of trespasses expressed what her inarticulate nature could
not have put into words. Beneath the entire vault of heaven's dark blue
that night there was nowhere lifted to the Unknown a prayer more humbly
passion-full and gratefully imploring than her final whisper.
"For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen, amen."
When she left her seat at the window and turned towards the room again,
Jane Cupp, who was preparing for the morrow's journey and was just
entering with a dress over her arm, found herself restraining a start at
sight of her.
"I hope you are quite well, my lady," she faltered.
"Yes," Lady Walderhurst answered. "I think I am very well--very well,
Jane. You will be quite ready for the early train to-morrow morning."
"Yes, my lady, quite."
"I have been thinking," said Emily gently, almost in a tone of reverie,
"that if you
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