Still as he looked upward, she looked at him.
The wind was blustering. The breath of the northwest had swept the heavens clear before bringing up its own phalanx of cloud and rain. The complaint of the great woods, far below their feet, rose about them; the thousand small voices of moving leaf and branch swelling like the murmur of a crowd into one pervading sound. Ellinor felt as if these voices of the earth were claiming her while the astronomer’s ears were deaf.
Whilst they had remained within the observatory she had shared for a moment some of his own exaltation, heard the mysteries speaking to him, felt as if each star that struck her vision was in direct and personal communication with herself. But, once in the open air, as she leant over the parapet, this sense fell away from her. The heavens were chillingly remote, and remote was the spirit of their high priest and worshipper. Indeed he was gradually becoming oblivious of her presence.
After a prolonged silence she slipped out of his cloak and quietly placed it upon his own shoulders. He gathered the folds around him, crossed his arms with the gesture of the man who suffices to himself—all unconsciously, without even turning his eyes from their far-off contemplation.
And so she stole away from him—and sought her father once more. But finding him peacefully asleep in his high armchair, by a well-heaped fire and with the dumb famulus in attendance, she made her way through the deserted, silent house towards her own quarters, a little saddened in her heart, and yet happy.
A home-coming strange indeed, but strangely sweet.
With the quiet authority that so far had obtained for her all she wanted this evening, she had, on her arrival, bidden the only servant she could find prepare the chambers that had been hers in the old days. To these little gable-rooms, high perched in that wing of the house that connected it with the ancient keep, she now at last retired. Candle in hand, she stood still a moment, holding the light above her head, and dreamily surveyed the place that had known the joyous hopes of her childhood. There was an odd feeling in her throat akin to a rising sob of tenderness.
Then she walked slowly round. It was like stepping back into the past; like awakening from a fever sleep of pain and toil.
Home—the reality! The rest was gone—over—of no more consequence than a nightmare! And yet, interwoven with this quiet sense of comfort and shelter, was an eager little thread of hope in the new, unknown life opening before her.
From her windows she could look up to the faint light of the observatory at the top of the black mass of the tower; and below it, she knew, the sheer depth of wall ran down into the dim spaces of the Herb-Garden. She gazed forth at the heavens. Never before this hour had she seen in its depths anything but the skies of night or the skies of day; now they were peopled with marvels. Never could they seem empty or commonplace again.