‘The dead have once risen. Might they not rise again?’
CHAPTER XLVI.—HOW MADELINE ROSE AGAIN.
A few days after Edgar Sutherland’s visit to Mount Eden, Jane Peartree walked out for the first time after her illness into the sun. She wore the plain cap and gown of the other inmates of the Home, and even in that simple costume (or rather, perhaps, because of it) she looked strangely beautiful. Leaning on the arm of Adèle Lambert, she passed feebly across the green lawn in front of the house, and gained a garden seat in a quiet walk leading to the home farm.
The day was very mild for winter tide, the sun was shining gently, and here and there from the dark earth a snowdrop was peeping. The air, moreover, was full of that cool, balmy sweetness which so often in our chill climate precedes the resurrection of the spring.
But Jane Peartree was ill at ease. Ever since her encounter with Sutherland she had been strangely fretful and uneasy, and had not her strength failed she would certainly have taken her departure before that day.
As they sat together on the window-seat, her cry was still for speedy flight.
‘I must go to-morrow!—yes, Adèle, to-morrow! I have already stayed too long!’
‘But, madame, you are still so weak. Why should you go so soon?’