Leaving the stables, she saw that the wind was driving up a huge, white,
shining cloud. "Isn't it going to be fine after all!" she thought.
Re-entering the house by an old and so-called secret stairway that
led straight to the library, she had to traverse that great dark room.
There, buried in an armchair in front of the hearth she saw Miltoun with
a book on his knee, not reading, but looking up at the picture of the
old Cardinal. She hurried on, tiptoeing over the soft carpet, holding
her breath, fearful of disturbing the queer interview, feeling guilty,
too, of her new knowledge, which she did not mean to impart. She had
burnt her fingers once at the flame between them; she would not do so a
second time!
Through the window at the far end she saw that the cloud had burst; it
was raining furiously. She regained her bedroom unseen. In spite of her
joy out there on the moor, this last adventure of her girlhood had not
been all success; she had again the old sensations, the old doubts, the
dissatisfaction which she had thought dead. Those two! To shut one's
eyes, and be happy--was it possible! A great rainbow, the nearest she
had ever seen, had sprung up in the park, and was come to earth again
in some fields close by. The sun was shining out already through the
wind-driven bright rain. Jewels of blue had begun to star the black and
white and golden clouds.
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