At last I rose, and in the dead quiet I moved softly to the connecting
door. I knew that it was concealed in Amy's room by a heavy portiere,
and as it opened on my side, I had only to hide myself behind the
curtain's folds--as once before on that previous day, alas!--and,
unguessed by her, watch her at my ease.
The key moved gently in the lock; the lock yielded; a moment more and I
had pulled a tiny fold of the curtain aside, and commanded a full view
of the silent room. It was flooded with moonlight, and as light as day.
The bed was curtained, after the English fashion, but I fancied I could
hear a slight rustle of the coverings, as though one were roused, and
stirring restlessly. So light was the room that I could discern the
articles on the bureau and dressing-table. A branch of a great elm,
which grew at the side of the house, stretched across one window, and
its leaves, dancing in the night-breeze, made an ever-changing pattern
in shadow on the carpet. Did ever accepted lover keep such a tryst as
mine before? And she, just waking from her first sleep behind the
delicate white curtains of that bed, her tryst was with death, not with
love.
From the grove back of the house came a whip-poor-will's plaintive song,
pulsing in a tide of melody on the moonlit air. Was it a moan from the
bed, half-coherent and hopeless in cadence? Heaven grant that she waken
no one until it is too late, I thought fervently.
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