Rowland had found the two ladies alone at the villa, and he had sat with
them for an hour. He felt absolutely hushed by the solemn splendor of
the scene, but he had risked the remark that, whatever life might yet
have in store for either of them, this was a night that they would never
forget.
"It 's a night to remember on one's death-bed!" Miss Garland exclaimed.
"Oh, Mary, how can you!" murmured Mrs. Hudson, to whom this savored
of profanity, and to whose shrinking sense, indeed, the accumulated
loveliness of the night seemed to have something shameless and defiant.
They were silent after this, for some time, but at last Rowland
addressed certain idle words to Miss Garland. She made no reply, and he
turned to look at her. She was sitting motionless, with her head pressed
to Mrs. Hudson's shoulder, and the latter lady was gazing at him through
the silvered dusk with a look which gave a sort of spectral solemnity to
the sad, weak meaning of her eyes. She had the air, for the moment, of
a little old malevolent fairy. Miss Garland, Rowland perceived in an
instant, was not absolutely motionless; a tremor passed through her
figure.
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