And waking music in the forest shades.
“A lovely length of moonlit waters lightly
Broke into sudden brightness on the strand,
While through the sky’s soft fleecy fretwork brightly
The stars looked out upon the stilly land.”
Although he had been tormented all the way by a foreboding of indefinable evil, a moment of calm, of almost relief came to him as he paused on the long piazza and ran his hurried gaze over the front of the house. He saw that lights glimmered through all the windows as usual, and it somehow reassured his mind.
“There can be nothing wrong. It was only my foolish fancy,” he muttered; and opened the door with his night-key, anxious to surprise his darling. “She will not be expecting me until to-morrow,” he murmured, and thrilled at the thought of clasping her in another moment to his wildly throbbing heart. “Oh, my love, my darling, how happy she will be! how she will spring to my arms and clasp her warm white arms about my neck!” he thought, with the rapture of a lover, as he mounted the steps, and meeting no one, sought the nursery. She would be there at this moment before she went to dress for dinner—there in some pretty, charming déshabille—with their child whom she worshiped with such fond maternal love.
With an eager smile upon his proud, handsome lips, Norman de Vere turned the door-knob and entered the room.
Then he started back in surprise.