Mrs. Twist, with the average woman's unscientific and morbid
interest in such illness, sickened her still more.
The moonlight was very bright; the weather was warm, for May. Louis had
begged her not to swim now. She had given in to him rather than worry
him, but a sudden impulse to do what she thought pleasant without
troubling him came to her, and she slipped out of her nightgown quickly.
The lake lay at her feet, a shimmering pool of silver, almost without
ripples. It lapped very gently against her feet, bringing back the
softly lapping waters of Lashnagar on spring mornings. It was adorably,
tinglingly cold; she forgot the dream in the exhilaration and gave a
little cry of rapture as she waded further out. Then, without warning, a
ghost was in the water beside her. She stared, and knew that it was her
own reflection. With a little cry she hurried back to land, her heart
thumping wildly as she pulled on her nightgown over her wet body with
trembling hands.
"How horrible I look!" she whispered. "He mustn't know I look as awful
as that!"
The next day she waited for him, anxious to unpack the thrilling parcel
from Sydney, but he did not come, and all the night she sat waiting,
afraid that he had met with some accident. If someone had come, then,
and told her he was drunk she would not have believed it.
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