The place was familiar to her whole life; she had
scarcely a recollection with which it was not in some way connected.
It was not wonderful, therefore, that she loved it, and that in the
trouble of her mind her feet shaped their course towards it.
Presently she was in the churchyard. Taking her stand under the
shelter of a line of Scotch firs, through which the gale sobbed and
sang, she leant against a side gate and looked. The scene was desolate
enough. Rain dropped from the roof on to the sodden graves beneath,
and ran in thin sheets down the flint facing of the tower; the dead
leaves whirled and rattled about the empty porch, and over all shot
one red and angry arrow from the sinking sun. She stood in the storm
and rain, gazing at the old church that had seen the end of so many
sorrows more bitter than her own, and the wreck of so many summers,
till the darkness began to close round her like a pall, while the wind
sung the requiem of her hopes. Ida was not of a desponding or
pessimistic character, but in that bitter hour she found it in her
heart, as most people have at one time or another in their lives, to
wish the tragedy over and the curtain down, and that she lay beneath
those dripping sods without sight or hearing, without hope or dread.
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