Floy heaved a long, bursting sigh of intense relief, set down the lamp, and dropped wearily into a chair near the window.
The moon’s rays shone in her white face, so pale and horror-struck, and she saw that the storm was over and the sky clear again.
“Oh, how much longer must I stay here?—how long before the dawn?” she muttered, fearfully, gazing straight before her into the night, as if afraid to look back into the grewsome room with its dark, shadowy corners.
And this was Fly-away Floy, the fearless, with her nerves of steel, and her contemptuous disbelief in the supernatural—this pale, startled creature who had just looked into the mirror to see if the golden locks of youth had changed to the frosty ones of age.
What had changed and shaken the careless girl like this? Would she ever reveal the secret? Or would her indomitable pride seal her lips?
She leaned out of the window, reaching down and breaking off great clusters of wet, fragrant lilacs, in which she buried her stricken face, while low, bursting sobs convulsed her form—sobs of abject misery.
Hark! what was that sound? Only the low wind of the summer night soughing through the trees.
“No,” she cried, dismissing the fancy and springing to her feet, “it is a step in the hall!”
She clung to the window-sill, looking over her shoulder with terrified blue eyes, her heart beating wildly against her side.
She was half tempted to spring from the window and seek refuge in flight.