They dropped--the trees
shrouded him in darkness--he was gone.
Miss Garth went back to the suffering woman, with the burden on her mind
of one anxiety more.
It was then past eleven o'clock. Some little time had elapsed since she
had seen the sisters and spoken to them. The inquiries she addressed to
one of the female servants only elicited the information that they were
both in their rooms. She delayed her return to the mother's bedside to
say her parting words of comfort to the daughters, before she left them
for the night. Norah's room was the nearest. She softly opened the door
and looked in. The kneeling figure by the bedside told her that God's
help had found the fatherless daughter in her affliction. Grateful tears
gathered in her eyes as she looked: she softly closed the door, and went
on to Magdalen's room. There doubt stayed her feet at the threshold, and
she waited for a moment before going in.
A sound in the room caught her ear--the monotonous rustling of a woman's
dress, now distant, now near; passing without cessation from end to end
over the floor--a sound which told her that Magdalen was pacing to and
fro in the secrecy of her own chamber.
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