The Lost Lady of Lone eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 588 pages of information about The Lost Lady of Lone.

The Lost Lady of Lone eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 588 pages of information about The Lost Lady of Lone.

She saw no one among the passengers, whom she recognized; but still she kept her vail folded twice across her face, as she passed to a settee on deck.

She was scarcely seated before the boat left the pier.

Wind and tide was against her, and the passage promised to be a slow and rough one.

And soon indeed the steamer began to roll and toss amid the short, crisp waves of Dover Straits, now whipped to a froth by wind against tide.

Most of the passengers succumbed and went below.

Now, whether intense mental pre-occupation be an antidote to sea-sickness, we cannot tell.  But it is certain that Salome did not suffer from the violent motion of the boat.  She was indeed scarcely conscious of it.

She sat upon the deck, wrapped in a large shepherd’s plaid shawl, with her gray vail thickly folded over her face, which was turned toward the west, where the setting sun was sinking below the ocean horizon, and drawing down after him a long train of glory from over the troubled waters.

But it is doubtful if Salome even saw this, or knew what hour, what season it was!

A rough night followed.  Wrapped in her shawl, absorbed in her dream, Salome remained on deck, unaffected by the weather, and indifferent to its consequences, although more than once the captain approached and kindly advised her to go below.

It was after midnight when the boat reached her pier at Calais.

In the same dream Salome left her seat and landed among the sea-sick crowd.

In the same dream she allowed the custom-house officers to tumble out the contents of her little valise, and satisfied, without cavil, all their demands, and answered without hesitation all the questions put to her by the officials.

In the same dream she made her way to a carriage on the railway train just about to start for Paris.

There were three other occupants of the carriage, which was but dimly lighted by two oil lamps.  Salome did not look toward them, but doubled her vail still more closely over her face as she sat down in a corner and turned toward the window, on the left side of her seat.

The night was so dark that she could see but little, as the train flashed past what seemed to be but the black shadows of trees, fields, farm-houses, groves, villages, and lonely chateaux.

A weird midnight journey, through a strange land to an unknown bourne.

Occasionally she stole a glance through her thick vail toward her three fellow passengers, who sat opposite to her, on the back seat—­three silent, black-shrouded figures who sat mute and motionless as watchers of the dead.

Very terrifying, but very appropriate figures to take part in her nightmare dream.

She turned her eyes away from those silent, shrouded, mysterious figures, and prayed to awake.

She could not yet.

But as she peered out through the darkness of the night, and saw the black shadows of the roadway flying behind her as the train sped southward, her physical powers gradually succumbed to fatigue, and her waking dream passed off in a dreamless sleep.

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The Lost Lady of Lone from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.