"It grows very late. Go to bed, darling," she says, gently.
"Not till you go," says Kit, tightening the clasp of her arms.
"Well, that shall be in a moment, then," says Monica, with a stifled sigh. All through the dragging day and evening she has clung to the thought that surely her lover will come to bid her "good-night." And now it is late, and he has not come, and——
She leans against the side of the wide-open casement, and gazes in sad meditation upon the slumbering garden underneath. The lilies,—"tall white garden-lilies,"—though it is late in the season now, and bordering on snows and frosts, are still swaying to and fro, and giving most generously a rich perfume to the wondering air. Earth's stars they seem to her, as she lifts her eyes to compare them with the "forget-me-nots of the angels," up above.
Her first disappointment about her love is desolating her. She leans her head against the woodwork, and lifts her eyes to the vaguely-tinted sky. Thus, with face upturned, she drinks in the fair beauty of the night, and, as its beauty grows upon her, her sorrow deepens.
"With how sad steps, O moon! thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face,
Thou feel'st a lover's case!
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries."
As she watches the pale moon, Sidney's sad words return to her. Just now Diana is resting in a path of palest azure, whilst all around her clouds, silver-tinged, are lying out from her, trembling in mid-air.
Great patches of moonlight lie upon the garden sward. One seems brighter than its fellows, and as her eyes slowly sink from heaven to earth they rest upon it, as though attracted unconsciously by its brilliancy. And, even as she looks, a shadow falls athwart it, and then a low, quick cry breaks from her lips.
"What is it?" says Kit, scrambling to her knees.
"Only Brian," says Monica, with a hastily-drawn breath. A rich color has rushed into her cheeks, her eyes are alight, her lips have curved themselves into a happy smile.