“I don’t think I ever saw a woman so fond of a man,” she said.

Emily stood still.  She was quite silent.  Her eyes slowly filled.  She had never been able to say much about what she felt for Walderhurst.  Hers was a large, dumb, primitive affection.

She sat at her open bedroom window a long time that evening.  She rested her chin upon her hand and looked up at the deeps of blue powdered with the diamond dust of stars.  It seemed to her that she had never looked up and seen such myriads of stars before.  She felt far away from earthly things and tremulously uplifted.  During the last two weeks she had lived in a tumult of mind, of amazement, of awe, of hope and fear.  No wonder that she looked pale and that her face was full of anxious yearning.  There were such wonders in the world, and she, Emily Fox-Seton, no, Emily Walderhurst, seemed to have become part of them.

She clasped her hands tight together and leaned forward into the night with her face turned upwards.  Very large drops began to roll fast down her cheeks, one after the other.  The argument of scientific observation might have said she was hysterical, and whether with or without reason is immaterial.  She did not try to check her tears or wipe them away, because she did not know that she was crying.  She began to pray, and heard herself saying the Lord’s Prayer like a child.

“Our Father who art in Heaven—­Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” she murmured imploringly.

She said the prayer to the end, and then began it over again.  She said it three or four times, and her appeal for daily bread and the forgiveness of trespasses expressed what her inarticulate nature could not have put into words.  Beneath the entire vault of heaven’s dark blue that night there was nowhere lifted to the Unknown a prayer more humbly passion-full and gratefully imploring than her final whisper.

“For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen, amen.”

When she left her seat at the window and turned towards the room again, Jane Cupp, who was preparing for the morrow’s journey and was just entering with a dress over her arm, found herself restraining a start at sight of her.

“I hope you are quite well, my lady,” she faltered.

“Yes,” Lady Walderhurst answered.  “I think I am very well—­very well, Jane.  You will be quite ready for the early train to-morrow morning.”

“Yes, my lady, quite.”

“I have been thinking,” said Emily gently, almost in a tone of reverie, “that if your uncle had not wanted your mother so much it would have been nice to have her here with us.  She is such an experienced person, and so kind.  I never forget how kind she was to me when I had the little room in Mortimer Street.”

“Oh! my lady, you was kind to us,” cried Jane.

She recalled afterwards, with tears, how her ladyship moved nearer to her and took her hand with what Jane called “her wonderful good look,” which always brought a lump to her throat.