X
I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect
presently of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone:
then I returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there
by the light of the candle I had left burning was that Flora's
little bed was empty; and on this I caught my breath with all
the terror that, five minutes before, I had been able to resist.
I dashed at the place in which I had left her lying and over which
(for the small silk counterpane and the sheets were disarranged)
the white curtains had been deceivingly pulled forward;
then my step, to my unutterable relief, produced an answering sound:
I perceived an agitation of the window blind, and the child,
ducking down, emerged rosily from the other side of it.
She stood there in so much of her candor and so little of her nightgown,
with her pink bare feet and the golden glow of her curls.
She looked intensely grave, and I had never had such a sense of losing
an advantage acquired (the thrill of which had just been so prodigious)
as on my consciousness that she addressed me with a reproach.
"You naughty: where HAVE you been?"--instead of challenging
her own irregularity I found myself arraigned and explaining.
She herself explained, for that matter, with the loveliest,
eagerest simplicity. She had known suddenly, as she lay there,
that I was out of the room, and had jumped up to see what had
become of me.
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