The woman locked the door.

Returning to the window, she fell on her knees, and stretched her hands imploringly toward the tiny spot of light that still shone against the dark shadow of the mountain-side.
Between the mighty walls of tree-clad hills that lifted their solemn crests into the midnight sky, the dark river poured the sombre strength of its innumerable currents,--terrible in its awful power; dreadful, in its mysterious and unseen forces; irresistible in its ceaseless, onward rush to the sea of its final and infinite purpose! And here and there on the restless, ever-moving surface of the shadowy, never-ending flood twinkled the reflection of a star..