Let him not be too
proud to take it!"
Diana put down the book with a low sob that sounded through the quiet
room. Then she opened the garden door and stepped on to the terrace. The
night was cold but not frosty; there was a waning moon above the
autumnal fulness of the garden and the woods.
A "spirit in her feet" impelled her. She went back to the house, found a
cloak and hat, put out the lamps, and sent the servants to bed. Then
noiselessly she once more undid the drawing-room door, and stole out
into the garden and across the lawn. Soon she was in the lime-walk, the
first yellow leaves crackling beneath her feet; then in the kitchen
garden, where the apples shone dimly on the laden boughs, where
sunflowers and dahlias and marigolds, tall white daisies and late
roses--the ghosts of their daylight selves--dreamed and drooped under
the moon; where the bees slept and only great moths were abroad. And so
on to the climbing path and the hollows of the down. She walked quickly
along the edge of it, through hanging woods of beech that clothed the
hill-side. Sometimes the trees met in majestic darkness above her head,
and the path was a glimmering mystery before her.
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