Drew the blinds, reducing the interior to uniform,
shadow-peopled obscurity, with the exception of her own bed-chamber.
There she left one small square window--set deep in the stone work of the
wall--open and uncurtained.
It faced the causeway and perspective of lane skirting the warren and
leading to the high road and village. Looking out thence, in winter when
the trees were bare, she could see Deadham church, crowning its
monticule, part of the sloping graveyard and, below these in the middle
distance, the roofs and gables of the village street.
To-day the view was obliterated. For here, at the river level, mist and
drizzle took the form of fog. Opaque, chill and dank, it drifted in
continuous, just perceptible, undulations past and in at the open
casement. Soon the air of the room grew thick and whitish, the dark oak
furniture and the floor boards furred with moisture. Yet, her methodical
closure of the house complete, Lesbia Faircloth elected to sit in full
inward sweep of it, drawing a straight-backed chair, mounted on roughly
carpentered rockers, close to the window.
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