CHAPTER XLIV.
Little took a book, and tried to while away the time till Ransome's return; but he could not command his attention. The conversation about Grace had excited a topic which excluded every other.
He opened his window, a French casement, and looked out upon the night.
Then he observed that Grace, too, was keeping vigil; for a faint light shot from her window and sparkled on the branches of the plane-tree in her little front garden.
“And that,” thought Henry, sadly, “is all I can see of her. Close to her, yet far off—further than ever now.”
A deep sadness fell on him, sadness and doubt. Suppose he were to lay a trap for her to-morrow, and catch her at her own door! What good would it do? He put himself in her place. That process showed him at once she would come no more. He should destroy her little bit of patient, quiet happiness, the one daily sunbeam of her desolate life.
By-and-by, feeling rather drowsy, he lay down in his clothes to wait for Ransome's return. He put out his light.
From his bed he could see Grace's light kiss the plane-tree.
He lay and fixed his eyes on it, and thought of all that had passed between them; and, by-and-by, love and grief made his eyes misty, and that pale light seemed to dance and flicker before him.
About midnight, he was nearly dozing off, when his ear caught a muttering outside; he listened, and thought he heard some instrument grating below.