She shut the book with a little weary sigh, and looked irresolutely at her sleeping aunt, then at the chair by the north window.
Lucina felt none of the languor which is sometimes caused by extreme heat.

Instead, there was a fierce electric tension through all her nerves.

She was weary almost to death, the cool of this dark room was unutterably grateful to her, yet she could not remain quiet.

She had left her parasol and hat on the hall-table.

She stole out softly, with scarcely the faintest rustle of skirts, tied on her hat, took her parasol, and went through the house to the back-garden door.
Looking back, she saw the old servant-woman's broadly interrogatory face in a vine-wreathed kitchen-window.