"Adieu, adieu!" whispered Ma'ame Pelagie.
There was no longer the moon to guide her steps across the familiar
pathway to the cabin. The brightest light in the sky was Venus, that
swung low in the east. The bats had ceased to beat their wings about
the ruin. Even the mocking-bird that had warbled for hours in the old
mulberry-tree had sung himself asleep. That darkest hour before the day
was mantling the earth. Ma'ame Pelagie hurried through the wet, clinging
grass, beating aside the heavy moss that swept across her face, walking
on toward the cabin-toward Pauline. Not once did she look back upon the
ruin that brooded like a huge monster--a black spot in the darkness that
enveloped it.