Читать книгу The Peacock Feather. A Romance онлайн

29 страница из 53

In ten minutes Peter was asleep. He slept well, but he dreamt, and once or twice through his dreams he heard the sound of sobbing. It was a pitiful little sobbing, as of a woman in grief, and mingled with it seemed to be faint half-articulate words.

Once Peter half-awakened, and for a moment he fancied the sobbing was real, but reason, which was working fitfully, told him it was only the wind in the trees without. He shifted his position and fell asleep again.

CHAPTER IV

ssss1

Peter came out from the cottage door in the early morning. The rain of the previous night had ceased, only the trees, bushes, and grass were hung with myriads of drops sparkling silver and diamond in the morning sunshine. He smelt the good smell of the wet earth, and filled his lungs with the cool fresh air.

By rights Peter should by now have been well on his way, for, though his way led generally to no particular goal, he was always a-foot by sunrise. But something—Peter did not know what—held him to that cottage. It was almost as if the desolate place cried to him: “Stay with me; I, too, am lonely.” Certainly something indefinable but insistent was drawing him to remain.