The nightingale that had been singing in the early night had long ago become hushed. From a distant meadow there came the sound of the unmelodious corncrake. There was a little cheeping and rustling among the ivy of the walls, and then came a blackbird’s syrupy contralto from among the laurels of the shrubbery, and far away the delicious liquid ripples of a lark—two larks—three—the pearly air was thrilling with the melody of larks and with the flutings of thrushes, and the cooings of the wood pigeons, long before the sultans of the farmyards sent forth their challenges to be passed on and on like the ripple on a lake, until the last could be but faintly heard coming from the height of the Downs.
He sat there listening to everything, and scarcely conscious of the melting of the night into the dawn. There had been no darkness at any time of that June night, and the dawn was only like all the pearls of the sky melting in the liquid air.
At last he got up from his seat and walked to the balustrade of the terrace, looking forth over the white mists that curled and rose from the lawns and the meadows beneath. He felt that his new day had arisen for him. He went upstairs to his room, and when he had got into bed, he was asleep within five minutes.
It so happened, however, that the room in which his mother slept was just opposite to his on the same corridor, and even the slight sound that he made closing his door was enough to awaken her. She could then hear the sound of his swinging back the curtains which the careful housemaids invariably drew across his windows when they were turning down the counterpane; and then she knew that he must just have come upstairs. Her room was quite light, so that she could see the hour shown by the little bracket clock. It was five minutes past two.
So he had passed the four hours that elapsed since they had parted, sitting alone in the empty room! (She knew nothing of his having gone out upon the terrace.)
Her knowledge of this circumstance told her a great deal more of his condition than she could have learned from his own lips had he felt inclined to confess to her all that was in his heart.
It was true, then—the inference that she had drawn from his guarded words respecting the young woman was correct. It was on her account he had made up his mind that there was no place like home.
The mother was in great distress for some time. She shed some tears, but not many, for she reflected that at least a year must elapse before this young widow—for she was a widow, whatever sophists might say—could make another matrimonial venture, and what may not happen within a year?
This reflection comforted her, and so did the thought:
“After all, I have not seen her yet.”