She kept losing herself in such thoughts, and became almost afraid of forgetting why she sat there.

Presently she felt cold, and got up to fetch a shawl, in which she muffled herself and resumed her place.
It seemed to her growing very late; the moonlight was coming fuller and fuller into the garden and the blackness of the shadow was more concentrated and stronger.

Surely Mr.Dunster could not have gone away along the dark shrubbery-path so noiselessly but what she must have heard him?
No! there was the swell of voices coming up through the window from her father's study: angry voices they were; and her anger rose sympathetically, as she knew that her father was being irritated.

There was a sudden movement, as of chairs pushed hastily aside, and then a mysterious unaccountable noise--heavy, sudden; and then a slight movement as of chairs again; and then a profound stillness.

Ellinor leaned her head against the side of the window to listen more intently, for some mysterious instinct made her sick and faint.