Then she went back to her bedroom and shut the door, and knelt down by the bed to pray, if prayer it could be called. Despite her efforts, everything was most incoherent and jumbled, broken by big sobs, and ending in no prayer at all, but silence. At last the silence must have brought its effect of soothing, for Rosalie rose from her knees with scarcely a vestige of the past emotion upon her face. She combed her hair and smoothed her dress, and then went for her hat.
“I’ll go into the garden,” she said, “and see if I can see the city.”
It was a glorious afternoon, with just sufficient sharpness for autumn in the air. It was considerably after three by the tower clock, and she recognised with regret there was time for little more than an hour there. Her hopes were realised. From the top of the red bank of flowers she could view the city very plainly. She saw right across to the high-standing temple, with every building of note and height rising in between. Behind her she could see nothing, for the wall rose exceptionally high, but from here she could look in the direction of the old home, and to that other magnificent erection that contained all the best prayers and aspirations of her dumb life.
After all, to look on to the sights of freedom is in a measure to the prisoner freedom itself.
From the city beyond, Rosalie’s eyes wandered back toward the mansion. There was something wanting in it; its magnificent outline attracted and repelled.
“What a lovely fairy story one could write about it,” she sighed. “It seems to me a kind of haunted, sleeping palace; and everything looks so strong, and dark, and silent, and yet beautiful, that I don’t know whether the story would have to turn out well or ill.”
She sat down on the rustic seat with the arbour of trailing leaves twining above it, and dreamily contemplated the wide expanse of city.
Suddenly she heard the ominous striking of the mansion clock.
One! two! three! four! five!
Rosalie turned her eyes from the sky and looked at it. A faint pink flush from the sun was shining on it, and she clasped her hands.