Mrs. de Burgh glanced towards the window.
"Is it so very dark?" she asked, evasively.
"Dark—not a star to be seen—but—what in the name of fortune, is that strange sudden light yonder?"
Mrs. de Burgh again glanced towards the window, but from the position of her seat could not gain sight of anything but the thick impenetrable darkness. Mary, however, standing with the candle she had taken up in her trembling hand, mechanically turned her eyes in the direction indicated. They were, indeed, immediately attracted by a red glare, which, rendered more conspicuous by the surrounding blackness, illuminated the distant sky opposite, just across the twelve miles of flat country separating Silverton from that wooded rise, which had so often rivetted her interested gaze, as marking the neighbouring site of Montrevor.
But it must have been a meteorical appearance which had produced the transitory effect, for even as she gazed it seemed to have faded from her sight—or rather, she observed it no more—saw nothing but the dark eye of Eugene Trevor flashing upon her with a lurid glaze, which in the troubled confusion of her ideas seemed in some way confounded with this late aspect of the sky.
"Sullenly fierce, a mixture dire,
Like thunder clouds, half gloom, half fire."
She turned away, lighting her candle with unsteady hand.
"Good night, Olivia," she said gravely.
Mrs. de Burgh held out her hand.
"Good night, Mary. I hope you will sleep well, and be better to-morrow."