Then I realized that I must find Alicia.
CHAPTER XXVI
Treading speedily with a strange lightness of step, I mounted the stairs first to see whether Alicia might have returned to her room, as was natural, and found her door ajar and the apartment empty.
My brain still wheeling, I seemed to float dawn the stairway and into the dining room, but no one was there. Somewhat uneasily I passed through the narrow box-like pantry into the kitchen and there the door that gave on the garden stood open wide.
In the shadow, under the starlit sky, under the mystical blue of overhanging boughs, stood Alicia alone, gazing into the velvety night, straight as a silvery Diana, mysterious, tragic.
At the sight of her the mad tumult of the evening seemed to ooze away from me in waves. By an effort of will I forced my heart to beat more soberly, as I approached her softly.
"Alicia!" I whispered behind her so as not to startle her. Slowly she turned toward me.
Her face was but dimly discernible but her eyes shone in the night with the brightness of the stars. The one thought of my heart was to bring Alicia back to the life of the past, to wipe out as swiftly as possible the ravages of the emotional storm, to bring her back to the tranquil blissful life that her happy presence made for me. A sad Alicia was unthinkable.
"You must come in, my child!" I touched her gently.
"I have tried so hard, Uncle Ranny," she turned her face and laid a hand timidly upon my arm, "I have tried so hard to keep all this pain from you—so that you could go on being your happy, lovely self."