She put the ring in an
envelope, and (while her eyelids were still heavy with tears, and her
cheeks wan and worn) she wrote outside--"_For Estelle._"
CHAPTER XVI.
AN AWAKENING.
London is a dreary-looking city on a Sunday morning, especially on a
Sunday morning in November; people seem to know how tedious the hours
are going to be, and lie in bed as long as they decently can; the
teeming and swarming capital of the world looks as if it had suddenly
grown lifeless. When Lionel got up, there was a sort of yellow darkness
in the air; hardly a single human being was visible in the Green Park
over the way; a solitary saunterer, hands deep in the pockets of his
overcoat, who wandered idly along the neglected pavement, had the
appearance of having been out all night, and of not knowing what to do
with himself, now that what passed for daylight had come. All of a
sudden there flashed into the brain of this young man standing by the
French window a yearning to get away from this dark and dismal
town--there came before him a vision of clear air, of wind-swept waves,
with an after-church promenade of fashionable folk in which he might
recognize the welcome face of many a friend.
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