She dragged herself upstairs, and locked herself in her room, stumbled to the window, caught at it by the sill and leaned out. Her skin burned, her blood beat at her temples, and her breath came panting from her. Her white breasts ached with the burden of her strife. “I was born to live, not die. Air! or I shall fall.”
It was mellow dusk by now, the lamps below her lighted, and above the chimneys and broken roof-line, above the trembling glare which meant London, there were stars in a violet sky. The stars which looked on London, looked also on the dim grass wolds, on hills rolling like waves, on muffled woods, rivers swift under their banks, on cornlands stiff and silent in the calm, on pastures and drowsy sheep. But the hills stretched out on either side of a valley, fold upon fold, everlastingly the same. There Despoina walked, at the deepest hour of the night. Even now she was looked for by one who sat in the valley and watched the East—intent, hooded, white, his chin upon his knees. A knock sounded at her door. She turned and ran to open. “Her ladyship have sent to know if you would have something sent up, miss.”
“Nothing, nothing.” She sped back to the window.
At midnight, Despoina should be there. At midnight! In three hours! It was time to get ready; there wasn't a moment to lose. She watched the night as if she were listening to it, counting its pulse. Then, kneeling where she was, she began to unfasten her hair, running her hands through it as each clinging coil loosened and grew light. So presently she was curtained in her hair.
It drooped about her burning cheeks and veiled her bosom. She looked like the Magdalen in the desert, facing, wide-eyed, the preacher. There she knelt on, in a trance, waiting for the hour.
It struck ten—eleven.
She changed her dress and put on again the blue cotton gown of the day's wearing—but she left her hair loose about her face and shoulders, and her feet were bare. She looked at herself in the glass. Her face was white, her eyes were wide and strange. She did not know herself, smiling so sharply—like a goddess wild with a rapture not known by men and women. Fiercer delights than theirs she knew, the joy of power mated with its equal, coping fellow to fellow. Consciousness of immortal bliss dawned upon her wise lips, and flickered in their curve.
“Despoina is here,” she said, and blew out the light.
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