"Here is your shawl, Madelon," he said, putting it round her
shoulders; "did you think I was ever coming? That woman----"
He stopped short in his speech; she turned round and looked at
him with her white, scared face, her wide-open, brown eyes, as
if she had seen a ghost. Ghosts enough, indeed, our poor
Madelon had seen during these last five minutes; but they were
not visible to Graham, who stood sufficiently astonished and
alarmed, as she turned abruptly away again, and disappeared
through the glass door into the garden.
"Stay, Madelon!" he cried and followed her out into the night.
It was raining, he found, as soon as he got outside. The
garden had been prettily illuminated with coloured lamps hung
along the verandah, and amongst the trees and shrubs, but they
were nearly all extinguished now. It was a bleak mournful
night, summer time though it was, the wind moaning and
sighing, the rain falling steadily. Graham, as he passed
quickly along the sodden path, had a curious sensation of
having been through all this before; another sad, rainy night
came to his mind, a lighted street, a dark avenue, and a
little passionate figure flying before him, instead of the
tall, white one who moved swiftly on now, and finally
disappeared beneath the long shoots of climbing plants that
overhung a sort of summer-house at the end of a walk.
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