She raised her eyes and mine held hers for the briefest of moments.
To me it seemed as if a world of doubt and uncertainty were being swept away and I were looking into eyes I had known through all the ages.
Then her golden lashes dropped and hid those wonderful eyes from me.
Impulsively, yet fully knowing what I did, I raised her hand and touched the back of her fingers with my lips.
She did not draw her hand away. She smiled across to me ever so sweetly and turned from me into the darkness.
Not for an hour did I wake from my reveries. The spell of new influences was upon me; the moon, climbing up among the scudding night-clouds, never seemed so bright before and the phosphorescent glow and silver streaks on the water never so beautiful.
A light travelled across the parlour over the way. I saw Miss Grant seat herself by the piano, and soon the whole air became charged with the softest, sweetest cadences,—elusive, faint and fairylike.
How I enjoyed them! How old Jake on the cliffs must have enjoyed them! What an artist the lady was, and how she excelled herself that evening!
I lay in a transport of pleasure, hoping that the music might never cease; but, alas for such vain hoping,—it whispered and died away, leaving behind it only the stillness of the night, the sighing of the wind in the tops of the tall creaking firs, the chirping of the crickets under the stones and the call of the night bird to her mate.
I raised my eyes across to the cottage.