ed out on the wide stretch of park and lawn.

How dreary the moonlight is! robbed of all its tenderness and repose by
the hard driving wind. The trees are harassed by that tossing motion,
when they would like to be at rest; the shivering grass makes her quake
with sympathetic cold; and the willows by the pool, bent low and white
under that invisible harshness, seem agitated and helpless like herself.
But she loves the scene the better for its sadness: there is some pity in
it. It is not like that hard unfeeling happiness of lovers, flaunting in
the eyes of misery.

She set her teeth tight against the window-frame, and the tears fell
thick and fast. She was so thankful she could cry, for the mad passion
she had felt when her eyes were dry frightened her. If that dreadful
feeling were to come on when Lady Cheverel was present, she should never
be able to contain herself.

Then there was Sir Christopher--so good to her--so happy about Anthony's
marriage; and all the while she had these wicked feelings.

'O, I cannot help it, I cannot help it!' she said in a loud whisper
between her sobs. 'O God, have pity upon me!'

In this way Tina wore out the long hours of the windy moon-light, till at
last, with weary aching limbs, she lay down in bed again, and slept from
mere exhaustion.

While this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight too heavy
for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in unmoved and
terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal courses; the
tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed; the sun was making
brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the swift earth. The
stream of human thought and deed was hurrying and broadening onward. The
astronomer was at his telescope; the great ships were labouring over the
waves; the toiling eagerness of commerce, the fierce spirit of
revolution, were only ebbing in brief rest; and sleepless statesmen were
dreading the possible crisis of the morrow. What were our little Tina and
her trouble in this mighty torrent, rushing from one awful unknown to
another? Lighter than the smallest centre of quivering life in the
waterdrop, hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish in the breast
of the tiniest bird that has fluttered down to its nest with the
long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty.

Chapter 6

The next morning, when Caterina was waked from her heavy sleep by Martha
bringing in the warm