Moon and stars gazed
down calmly, almost wonderingly, holding their unperturbed watch
over the war below. Sublime, forceful, the sight suited the somewhat
excited condition of Dartmouth's mind. Moreover, he was beginning to
feel that one of his moods was insidiously creeping upon him: not an
attack like the last, but a general feeling of melancholy. If he could
only put that wonderful scene before him into verse, what a solace
and distraction the doing of it would be! He could forget--he pulled
himself together with something like terror. In another moment there
would be a repetition of that night in Paris. The best thing he could
do was to go back to his room and take an anodyne.
He turned to leave the gallery, but as he did so he paused suddenly.
Far down, at the other end, something was slowly coming toward him.
The gallery was very long and ill-lighted by the narrow, infrequent
windows, and he could not distinguish whom it was. He stood, however,
involuntarily waiting for it to approach him. But how slowly it came,
as one groping or one walking in a dream! Then, as it gradually
neared him, he saw that it was a woman, dimly outlined, but still
unmistakably a woman.
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