Before it was wholly light Hilda moved wearily to the window. She threw it open, and sat with arms resting on the sill and her chin upon her hands, mechanically noting the wonders of the sunrise. A soft white mist was rising from the thick pasture, wholly obscuring the sea and filling the atmosphere with a damp chill. Seated there in her thin evening dress, she showed no sign of feeling the cold. At times physical pain is almost a pleasure. The glistening damp rested on every blade of grass, on every leaf and twig, while the many webs stood whitely against the shadows, some hanging like festoons from tree to tree, others floating out in mid-air without apparent reason or support. In and among the branches lingered little secret deposits of mist waiting the sun's warmth to melt them all away. The suppressed creak of Sidney's door attracted Hilda's attention, but she did not move, merely turning to look at her own door as her brother passed it with awkward caution. A dull instinct told her that he was going to the moat again. Presently he passed beneath her window and across the dewy lawn, leaving a trailing mark upon the grass. The whole picture seemed suddenly to be familiar to her. She had lived through it all before--not in another life, not in years gone by, not in a dream, but during the last few hours. The air was very still, and she could hear the clank of the chain as Sidney unmoored the old punt, rarely used except by the gardener to clean the moat when the weeds died down in autumn. The quiet was rendered more remarkable by the suddenness of its advent. All night it had been blowing a wild gale, which dropped at dawn, and from the soft land the mist rose instantly. Prompted by a vague desire to be doing something, Hilda presently turned from the window, and, after a moment's indecision, chose from the shelf a novel fresh from the brain of the king of writers. With it she returned to her low chair and listlessly turned over the leaves for some moments. She raised her head and sought in vain the tiny form of a lark trilling out his morning hymn far up in the blue sky. Then she resolutely commenced to read uninterruptedly. She read on until Sidney's firm step upon the gravel beneath the window roused her. A minute later he knocked softly at her door. The water was glistening on his rough shooting-boots as he entered the room, and upon the brown leather gaiters there was a deeper shade showing where the wet grass had brushed against his legs. His honest, immobile face showed but little surprise at the sight of Hilda still in evening dress, but she saw that he noticed it. She rose from her low chair and laid aside the book, but no sort of greeting passed between them. “I have been all round again,” he said quietly, “by daylight, and--and of course there is no sign.” She nodded her head, but did not speak.