Pendril to
Aldborough.
Late in the evening, when the parlor at North Shingles began to get
dark, and when the captain rang the bell for candles as usual, he was
surprised by hearing Magdalen's voice in the passage telling the servant
to take the lights downstairs again. She knocked at the door immediately
afterward, and glided into the obscurity of the room like a ghost.
"I have a question to ask you about your plans for to-morrow," she said.
"My eyes are very weak this evening, and I hope you will not object to
dispense with the candles for a few minutes."
She spoke in low, stifled tones, and felt her way noiselessly to a chair
far removed from the captain in the darkest part of the room. Sitting
near the window, he could just discern the dim outline of her dress, he
could just hear the faint accents of her voice. For the last two days
he had seen nothing of her except during their morning walk. On
that afternoon he had found his wife crying in the little backroom
down-stairs. She could only tell him that Magdalen had frightened
her--that Magdalen was going the way again which she had gone when the
letter came from China in the terrible past time at Vauxhall Walk.
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