The lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the
fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels
upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence,
only made the stillness of the place seem more intense. It was almost
oppressive, this twilight stillness. The very repose of the place grew
painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying
somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile of building--so
deathlike was the tranquillity of all around.

As the clock over the archway struck eight, a door at the back of the
house was softly opened, and a girl came out into the gardens.

But even the presence of a human being scarcely broke the silence; for
the girl crept slowly over the thick grass, and gliding into the avenue
by the side of the fish-pond, disappeared in the rich shelter of the
limes.

She was not, perhaps, positively a pretty girl; but her appearance was
of that order which is commonly called interesting. Interesting, it may
be, because in the pale face and the light gray eyes, the small features
and compressed lips, there was something which hinted at a power of
repression and self-control not common in a woman of nineteen or twenty.
She might have been pretty, I think, but for the one fault in her small
oval face. This fault was an absence of color. Not one tinge of crimson
flushed the waxen whiteness of her cheeks; not one shadow of brown
redeemed the pale insipidity of her eyebrows and eyelashes; not one
glimmer of gold or auburn relieved the dull flaxen of her hair. Even her
dress was spoiled by this same deficiency. The pale lavender muslin
faded into a sickly gray, and the ribbon knotted round her throat melted
into the same neutral hue.