With this in view, she hastened along, not noticing that the sun had gone under a cloud and that the path to the road was very long.
Therefore, she was surprised, when she emerged from the woodland, to find the sky, formerly all blue and fleecy clouds, changed to a threatening, lowering gray.
“But where is the inn?” she stammered, looking about her, bewildered. Then, as the appalling truth struck home, she grew pale with consternation.
“How could I do such a thing?” she wailed. “I must have taken the wrong path, and now I am goodness knows where. And even the sun has disappeared. Now I am in a nice fix,” and she gazed about her helplessly and vexedly, not knowing which way to turn.
“Well, there’s no use standing here; that never did anybody any good,” she said, at last. “If my weather eye does not deceive me, I am in for a good wetting, if I can’t find shelter anywhere. Oh, the folks will be wild!”
With these and other disquieting thoughts, she started to push her way along the deserted road, with the forgotten wild flowers clutched tightly in her hand.
She had walked for over half an hour, and the first drops of rain had begun to splash upon her bare head, when, to her great delight, she saw the white front of a house among the trees.
With a joyful cry she broke into a run and, a moment later, came upon a pebbled drive that led up to a low, picturesque structure, built on the top of a gentle slope. 151
Lucile had that strange sensation which we all have experienced some time in our lives, a distinct impression she was not looking upon the chateau for the first time. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, and it was on the tip of her tongue to put her thoughts into words when she dismissed the idea as absurd. Why, she had spent all of her life, up to the last month at least, in Burleigh, so it was plainly ridiculous even to imagine she knew the place. Many and many a time she had read descriptions of French chateaux—ah, that was it! She must have read about just such a place. But, in spite of all reasoning, the illusion clung with startling persistency. In fact, the nearer she came to the house, the more and more was she impressed with its familiarity.
She ran up to the porch just as the storm broke.