THE STRANGENESS OF ANTONY From this moment Silencieux took possession of Antony as she had never taken it before.

Never had he been so inaccessibly withdrawn into his fatal dream.

Beatrice forgot her own bitter sorrow in her fear for him, so wrought was he with the fires that consumed him.

Some days she almost feared for his reason, and she longed to watch over him, but his old irritation at her presence had returned.
As the summer days came on, she would see him disappear through the green door of the wood at morning and return by it at evening; but all the day each had been alone, Beatrice alone with a solitude in which was now no longer any Wonder.

The summer beauty gave her courage, but she knew that the end could not be very far away.
One day there had been that in Antony's manner which had more than usually alarmed her, and when night fell and he had not returned, she went up the wood in search of him, her heart full of forebodings.