Daybreak.
Chapter I.
"O jewel in the lotos: amen!"
A wide, slow whitening of the east, a silent stealing away of shadows, a growing radiance before which the skies receded into ineffable heights of pale blue and gleaming silver, and a March day came blowing in with locks of gold, and kindling glances, and girdle of gold, and golden sandals over the horizon.
Louis Granger, standing in the open window of his chamber, laughed as he looked in the face of the morning, and stretched out his hands and cried, "Backsheesh, O Howadji!"
Not many streets distant, another pair of eyes looked into the brightening east, but saw no gladness there. Margaret Hamilton remembered that it was her twenty-fifth birthday, and that she had cried herself to sleep the night before, thinking of it. But she would not remember former birthdays, celebrated by father, mother, and sisters, before they had died, one after one, and left her alone and aghast before the world. This, and some other memories still more recent, she put out of sight; and, since they would not stay without force, she held them out of sight. One who has to do this is haunted.
The woman looked haunted. Her eyes were unnaturally bright and alert, and shadows had settled beneath them; her cheeks were worn thin; her mouth compressed itself in closing. At twenty-five she looked thirty-five.
And yet Miss Hamilton was meant for a beauty—one of the brilliant kind, with clear gray eyes, and a creamy pallor contrasting with profuse black hair. The beautiful head was well set; something vivid and spirited in the whole air of it. Her height was only medium, but she had the carriage of a Jane de Montford, and there were not wanting those who would have described her as tall.
While she looked gloomily out, a song she had heard somewhere floated up in her mind: