"I am not going out to-night," he responded gravely."
"Oh!" Nina hesitated still. She was trembling slightly. "Then—I shall see you again?" she said.
He bent his head.
"I shall be with you in ten minutes," he replied.
And she passed out quickly.
The night was still and hot. She went into her own little sitting-room and straight to the open window. Her heart was beating very fast as she stood and looked across the quiet square. The roar of London hummed busily from afar. She heard it as one hears the rushing of unseen water among the hills.
There was no one moving in the square. The trees in the garden looked dim and dreamlike against a red-gold sky.
Suddenly in the next house, from a room with an open window, there rose the sound of a woman's voice, tender as the night. It reached the girl who stood waiting in the silence. The melody was familiar to her, and she leant forward breathlessly to catch the words:
Shadows and mist and night,
Darkness around the way;
Here a cloud and there a star;
Afterwards, Day!
There came a pause and the soft notes of a piano. Nina stood with clasped hands, waiting for the second verse. Her cheeks were wet.