It seemed now a piece of duty to return at night, a traverse of twenty rough up and down miles from Itchenford to the heath-land rolling on the chalk wave of the Surrey borders, easily done after the remonstrances of his host were stopped.
Dacier sat in an open carriage, facing a slip of bright moon.

Poetical impressions, emotions, any stirrings of his mind by the sensational stamp on it, were new to him, and while he swam in them, both lulled and pricked by his novel accessibility to nature's lyrical touch, he asked himself whether, if he were near the throes of death, the thought of having Diana Warwick to sit beside his vacant semblance for an hour at night would be comforting.

And why had his uncle specified an hour of the night?
It was a sentiment, like the request: curious in a man so little sentimental.

Yonder crescent running the shadowy round of the hoop roused comparisons.

Would one really wish to have her beside one in death?
In life--ah! But suppose her denied to us in life.