But now that the window was open she saw, as she approached, that the
night was not dark. There was a strong moonlight outside, and when she
reached the window she drew in her breath. For there, close upon her, as
it seemed, like one of her own Apennines risen and stalking through the
night, towered a great mountain, cloud-wreathed, and gashed with vast
ravines. The moon was shining on it between two chasing clouds, and the
light and shade of the great spectacle, its illumined slopes, and
impenetrable abysses, were at once magnificent and terrible.

Netta shut the window with groping, desperate hands, and rushed back to
bed. Never had she felt so desolate, so cut off from all that once made
her poor little life worth living. Yet, though she cried for a few
minutes in sheer self-pity, it was not long before she too was asleep.




II


The day after the Melroses' arrival at the Tower was once more a day of
rain--not now the tempestuous storm rain which had lashed the mill
stream to fury, and blustered round the house as they stepped into it,
but one of those steady, gray, and featureless downpours that
Westmoreland and Cumbria know so well. The nearer mountains which were
wholly blotted out, and of the far Helvellyn range and the Derwentwater
hills not a trace emerged. All colour had gone from the grass and the
autumn trees; a few sheep and a solitary pony in the fields near the
house stood forlorn and patient under the deluge; heaven and earth met in