The Design of the UNIX Operating System Maurice J. Bach

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THE DESIGN OFTHE uphx OPERATING SYSTEM MAURICE J.BACH
Other application programs Other application programs PRENTICE-
HALL SOFTWARE SERIES
THE DESIGN or the UNIX* OPER/VTITiG SYSTEM MAURICE J BACH
In this timely new book, Maurice J. Bach traces the popularity of the
UNIX® System throughout the computer industry. The author
describes the internal algorithms and structures that form the basis
of the operating system (the kernel) and their relationship to the
programmer interface. Among its key features, the book: • describes
the outline of the kernel architecture • introduces the system buffer
cache mechanism • includes data structures and algorithms used
internally by the file system • covers the system calls that provide
the user interface to the file system • defines the context of a
process and investigates the internal kernel primitives that
manipulate the process context • presents the system calls that
control the process context • describes process scheduling •
discusses memory management, including swapping and paging
systems • outlines general driver interfaces, with specific discussion
of disk drivers and terminal drivers • presents an overview of
streams • introduces inter-process communication and networking,
including System V messages, shared memory, and semaphores •
explains tightly coupled multiprocessor UNIX® systems •
investigates distributed UNIX® systems
AT&T THE DESIGN OF THE UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM Maurice J.
Bach PRENTICE-HALL, INC., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632
Copyright © 1986 by Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated.
Published by Prentice-Hall, Inc. A division of Simon & Schuster
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632 Prentice-Hall Software Series
Brian W. Kernighan, Advisor Cover Design Consultant: Sarah Bach
UNIX® is a registered trademark of AT&T. DEC, PDP, and VAX are
trademarks of Digital Equipment Corp. Series 32000 is a trademark
of National Semiconductor Corp. ®Ada is a registered trademark of

the U.S. Government (Ada Joint Program Office). UNIVAC is a
trademark of Sperry Corp. This document was set on an
AUTOLOGIC, Inc. APS-5 phototypesetter driven by the TROFF
formatter operating under the UNIX system on an AT&T 3B20
computer. The Publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered
in bulk quantities. For more information write: Special Sales/College
Marketing Prentice-Hall, Inc. College Technical and Reference
Division Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632 The author and
publisher of this book have used their best efforts in preparing this
book. These efforts include the development, research, and testing
of the theories and programs to determine their effectiveness. The
author and publisher make no warranty of any kind, expressed or
implied, with regard to these programs or the documentation
contained in this book. The author and publisher shall not be liable
in any event for incidental or consequential damages in connection
with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of these
programs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in
writing from the publisher. Prentice-Hall International (UK) Limited,
London Prentice-Hall of Australia Pty. Limited, Sydney Prentice-Hall
Canada Inc., Toronto Prentice-Hall Hispanoamericana, S.A., Mexico
Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited, New Delhi Prentice-Hall of
Japan, Inc., Tokyo Prentice-Hall of Southeast Asia Pte. Ltd.,
Singapore Editora Prentice-Hall do Brasil, Ltda., Rio de Janeiro
To my parents, for their patience and devotion, to my daughters,
Sarah and Rachel, for their laughter, to my son, Joseph, who arrived
after the first printing, and to my wife, Debby, for her love and
understanding.
CONTENTS PREFACE xi CHAPTER 1 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE
SYSTEM 1 1.1 History 1 1.2 System Structure 4 1.3 User Perspective
6 1.4 Operating System Services 14 1.5 Assumptions About
Hardware 15 1.6 Summary 18

CHAPTER 2 INTRODUCTION TO THE KERNEL 19 2.1 Architecture of
the UNIX Operating System 19 2.2 Introduction to System Concepts
22 2.3 Kernel Data Structures 34 2.4 System Administration 34 2.5
Summary and Preview 36 2.6 Exercises 37 CHAPTER 3 THE BUFFER
CACHE 38 3.1 Buffer Headers 39 3.2 Structure of the Buffer Pool 40
3.3 Scenarios for Retrieval of a Buffer 42 3.4 Reading and Writing
Disk Blocks 53 3.5 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Buffer
Cache 56 3.6 Summary 57 3.7 Exercises 58 CHAPTER 4 INTERNAL
REPRESENTATION OF FILES 60 4.1 Inodes 61 4.2 Structure of a
Regular File 67 4.3 Directories 73 4.4 Conversion of a Path Name to
an Inode 74 4.5 Super Block 76 4.6 Inode Assignment to a New File
77 4.7 Allocation of Disk Blocks 84 4.8 Other File Types 88 4.9
Summary 88 4.10 Exercises 89 vi
CHAPTER 5 SYSTEM CALLS FOR THE RLE SYSTEM 91 5.1 Open 92
5.2 Read 96 5.3 Write 101 5.4 File and Record Locking 103 5.5
Adjusting the Position of File I/O—LSEEK 103 5.6 Close 103 5.7 File
Creation 105 5.8 Creation of Special Files 107 5.9 Change Directory
and Change Root 109 5.10 Change Owner and Change Mode 110
5.11 STATandFSTAT 110 5.12 Pipes Ill 5.13 Dup 117 5.14 Mounting
and Unmounting File Systems 119 5.15 Link 128 5.16 Unlink 132
5.17 File System Abstractions 138 5.18 File System Maintenance 139
5.19 Summary 140 5.20 Exercises 140 CHAPTER 6 THE STRUCTURE
OF PROCESSES 146 6.1 Process States and Transitions 147 6.2
Layout of System Memory 151 6.3 The Context of a Process 159 6.4
SavingtheContext of a Process 162 6.5 Manipulation of the Process
Address Space 171 6.6 Sleep 182
6.7 Summary 188 6.8 Exercises 189 CHAPTER 7 PROCESS CONTROL
191 7.1 Process Creation 192 7.2 Signals 200 7.3 Process
Termination 212 7.4 Awaiting Process Termination 213 7.5 Invoking
Other Programs 217 7.6 The User ID of a Process 227 7.7 Changing
the Size of a Process 229 7.8 The Shell 232 7.9 System Boot and the
INIT Process 235 7.10 Summary 238 7.11 Exercises 239 CHAPTER 8
PROCESS SCHEDULING AND TIME 247 8.1 Process Scheduling 248
8.2 System Calls For Time 258 8.3 Clock 260 8.4 Summary 268 8.5

Exercises 268 CHAPTER 9 MEMORY MANAGEMENT POLICIES 271
9.1 Swapping 272 9.2 Demand Paging 285 9.3 A Hybrid System With
Swapping and Demand Paging . . . 307 9.4 Summary 307 9.5
Exercises 308 viii
CHAPTER 10 THE I/O SUBSYSTEM 312 10.1 Driver Interfaces 313
10.2 Disk Drivers 325 10.3 Terminal Drivers 329 10.4 Streams 344
10.5 Summary 351 10.6 Exercises 352 CHAPTER 11 INTERPROCESS
COMMUNICATION 355 11.1 Process Tracing 356 11.2 System VIPC
359 11.3 Network Communications 382 11.4 Sockets 383 11.5
Summary 388 11.6 Exercises 389 CHAPTER 12 MULTIPROCESSOR
SYSTEMS 391 12.1 Problem of Multiprocessor Systems 392 12.2
Solution With Master and Slave Processors 393 12.3 Solution With
Semaphores 395 12.4 The Tunis System 410 12.5 Performance
Limitations 410 12.6 Exercises 410 CHAPTER 13 DISTRIBUTED UNIX
SYSTEMS 412 13.1 Satellite Processors 414 13.2 The Newcastle
Connection 422 13.3 Transparent Distributed File Systems 426 13.4
A Transparent Distributed Model Without Stub Processes . . 429
13.5 Summary 430 13.6 Exercises 431 APPENDIX—SYSTEM CALLS .
. - 434 BIBLIOGRAPHY 454 INDEX 458
PREFACE The UNIX system was first described in a 1974 paper in
the Communications of the ACM [Thompson 74] by Ken Thompson
and Dennis Ritchie. Since that time, it has become increasingly
widespread and popular throughout the computer industry where
more and more vendors are offering support for it on their
machines. It is especially popular in universities where it is
frequently used for operating systems research and case studies.
Many books and papers have described parts of the system, among
them, two special issues of the Bell System Technical Journal in 1978
[BSTJ 78] and 1984 [BLTJ 84]. Many books describe the user level
interface, particularly how to use electronic mail, how to prepare
documents, or how to use the command interpreter called the shell;
some books such as The UNIX Programming Environment
[Kernighan 84] and Advanced UNIX Programming [Rochkind 85]

describe the programming interface. This book describes the internal
algorithms and structures that form the basis of the operating
system (called the kernel) and their relationship to the programmer
interface. It is thus applicable to several environments. First, it can
be used as a textbook for an operating systems course at either the
advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate level. It is most
beneficial to reference the system source code when using the book,
but the book can be read independently, too. Second, system
programmers can use the book as a reference to gain better
understanding of how the kernel works and to compare algorithms
used in the UNIX system to algorithms used in other operating
systems.
xii PREFACE Finally, programmers on UNIX systems can gain a
deeper understanding of how their programs interact with the
system and thereby code more-efficient, sophisticated programs.
The material and organization for the book grew out of a course that
I prepared and taught at AT&T Bell Laboratories during 1983 and
1984. While the course centered on reading the source code for the
system, I found that understanding the code was easier once the
concepts of the algorithms had been mastered. I have attempted to
keep the descriptions of algorithms in this book as simple as
possible, reflecting in a small way the simplicity and elegance of the
system it describes. Thus, the book is not a line-by-line rendition of
the system written in English; it is a description of the general flow
of the various algorithms, and most important, a description of how
they interact with each other. Algorithms are presented in a C- like
pseudo-code to aid the reader in understanding the natural language
description, and their names correspond to the procedure names in
the kernel. Figures depict the relationship between various data
structures as the system manipulates them. In later chapters, small
C programs illustrate many system concepts as they manifest
themselves to users. In the interests of space and clarity, these
examples do not usually check for error conditions, something that
should always be done when writing programs. I have run them on
System V; except for programs that exercise features specific to

System V, they should run on other versions of the system, too.
Many exercises originally prepared for the course have been included
at the end of each chapter, and they are a key part of the book.
Some exercises are straightforward, designed to illustrate concepts
brought out in the text. Others are more difficult, designed to help
the reader understand the system at a deeper level. Finally, some
are exploratory in nature, designed for investigation as a research
problem. Difficult exercises are marked with asterisks. The system
description is based on UNIX System V Release 2 supported by
AT&T, with some new features from Release 3. This is the system
with which I am most familiar, but I have tried to portray interesting
contributions of other variations to the operating system, particularly
those of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). I have avoided issues
that assume particular hardware characteristics, trying to cover the
kernel-hardware interface in general terms and ignoring particular
machine idiosyncrasies. Where machine-specific issues are important
to understand implementation of the kernel, however, I delve into
the relevant detail. At the very least, examination of these topics will
highlight the parts of the operating system that are the most
machine dependent. The reader must have programming experience
with a high-level language and, preferably, with an assembly
language as a prerequisite for understanding this book. It is
recommended that the reader have experience working with the
UNIX system and that the reader knows the C language [Kernighan
78]. However, I have attempted to write this book in such a way that
the reader should still be able to absorb the material without such
background. The appendix contains a simplified description of the
system calls, sufficient to understand the presentation
PREFACE xiii in the book, but not a complete reference manual. The
book is organized as follows. Chapter 1 is the introduction, giving a
brief, general description of system features as perceived by the user
and describing the system structure. Chapter 2 describes the general
outline of the kernel architecture and presents some basic concepts.
The remainder of the book follows the outline presented by the
system architecture, describing the various components in a building

block fashion. It can be divided into three parts: the file system,
process control, and advanced topics. The file system is presented
first, because its concepts are easier than those for process control.
Thus, Chapter 3 describes the system buffer cache mechanism that
is the foundation of the file system. Chapter 4 describes the data
structures and algorithms used internally by the file system. These
algorithms use the algorithms explained in Chapter 3 and take care
of the internal bookkeeping needed for managing user files. Chapter
5 describes the system calls that provide the user interface to the
file system; they use the algorithms in Chapter 4 to access user files.
Chapter 6 turns to the control of processes. It defines the context of
a process and investigates the internal kernel primitives that
manipulate the process context. In particular, it considers the system
call interface, interrupt handling, and the context switch. Chapter 7
presents the system calls that control the process context. Chapter 8
deals with process scheduling, and Chapter 9 covers memory
management, including swapping and paging systems. Chapter 10
outlines general driver interfaces, with specific discussion of disk
drivers and terminal drivers. Although devices are logically part of
the file system, their discussion is deferred until here because of
issues in process control that arise in terminal drivers. This chapter
also acts as a bridge to the more advanced topics presented in the
rest of the book. Chapter 11 covers interprocess communication and
networking, including System V messages, shared memory and
semaphores, and BSD sockets. Chapter 12 explains tightly coupled
multiprocessor UNIX systems, and Chapter 13 investigates loosely
coupled distributed systems. The material in the first nine chapters
could be covered in a one-semester course on operating systems,
and the material in the remaining chapters could be covered in
advanced seminars with various projects being done in parallel. A
few caveats must be made at this time. No attempt has been made
to describe system performance in absolute terms, nor is there any
attempt to suggest configuration parameters for a system
installation. Such data is likely to vary according to machine type,
hardware configuration, system version and implementation, and
application mix. Similarly, 1 have made a conscious effort to avoid

predicting future development of UNIX operating system features.
Discussion of advanced topics does not imply a commitment by
AT&T to provide particular features, nor should it even imply that
particular areas are under investigation. It is my pleasure to
acknowledge the assistance of many friends and colleagues who
encouraged me while I wrote this book and provided constructive
criticism of the manuscript. My deepest appreciation goes to Ian
Johnstone, who suggested
xiv PREFACE that I write this book, gave me early encouragement,
and reviewed the earliest draft of the first chapters. Ian taught me
many tricks of the trade, and I will always be indebted to him. Doris
Ryan also had a hand in encouraging me from the very beginning,
and I will always appreciate her kindness and thoughtfulness. Dennis
Ritchie freely answered numerous questions on the historical and
technical background of the system. Many people gave freely of their
time and energy to review drafts of the manuscript, and this book
owes a lot to their detailed comments. They are Debby Bach, Doug
Bayer, Lenny Brandwein, Steve Buroff, Tom Butler, Ron Gomes,
Mesut Gunduc, Laura Israel, Dean Jagels, Keith Kelleman, Brian
Kernighan, Bob Martin, Bob Mitze, Dave Nowitz, Michael Poppers,
Marilyn Safran, Curt Schimmel, Zvi Spitz, Tom Vaden, Bill Weber,
Larry Wehr, and Bob Zarrow. Mary Fruhstuck provided help in
preparing the manuscript for typesetting. I would like to thank my
management for their continued support throughout this project and
my colleagues, for providing such a stimulating atmosphere and
wonderful work environment at AT&T Bell Laboratories. John Wait
and the staff at Prentice-Hall provided much valuable assitance and
advice to get the book into its final form. Last, but not least, my
wife, Debby, gave me lots of emotional support, without which I
could never have succeeded.
1 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM The UNIX system has
become quite popular since its inception in 1969, running on
machines of varying processing power from microprocessors to
mainframes and providing a common execution environment across

them. The system is divided into two parts. The first part consists of
programs and services that have made the UNIX system
environment so popular; it is the part readily apparent to users,
including such programs as the shell, mail, text processing packages,
and source code control systems. The second part consists of the
operating system that supports these programs and services. This
book gives a detailed description of the operating system. It
concentrates on a description of UNIX System V produced by AT&T
but considers interesting features provided by other versions too. It
examines the major data structures and algorithms used in the
operating system that ultimately provide users with the standard
user interface. This chapter provides an introduction to the UNIX
system. It reviews its history and outlines the overall system
structure. The next chapter gives a more detailed introduction to the
operating system. 1.1 HISTORY In 1965, Bell Telephone Laboratories
joined an effort with the General Electric Company and Project MAC
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to
2 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM develop a new operating
system called Multics [Organick 72]. The goals of the Multics system
were to provide simultaneous computer access to a large community
of users, to supply ample computation power and data storage, and
to allow users to share their data easily, if desired. Many people who
later took part in the early development of the UNIX system
participated in the Multics work at Bell Laboratories. Although a
primitive version of the Multics system was running on a GE 645
computer by 1969, it did not provide the general service computing
for which it was intended, nor was it clear when its development
goals would be met. Consequently, Bell Laboratories ended its
participation in the project. With the end of their work on the Multics
project, members of the Computing Science Research Center at Bell
Laboratories were left without a "convenient interactive computing
service" [Ritchie 84a]. In an attempt to improve their programming
environment, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others sketched a
paper design of a file system that later evolved into an early version
of the UNIX file system. Thompson wrote programs that simulated

the behavior of the proposed file system and of programs in a
demand-paging environment, and he even encoded a simple kernel
for the GE 645 computer. At the same time, he wrote a game
program, "Space Travel," in Fortran for a GECOS system (the
Honeywell 635), but the program was unsatisfactory because it was
difficult to control the "space ship" and the program was expensive
to run. Thompson later found a little-used PDP-7 computer that
provided good graphic display and cheap executing power.
Programming "Space Travel" for the PDP-7 enabled Thompson to
learn about the machine, but its environment for program
development required cross-assembly of the program on the GECOS
machine and carrying paper tape for input to the PDP-7. To create a
better development environment, Thompson and Ritchie
implemented their system design on the PDP-7, including an early
version of the UNIX file system, the process subsystem, and a small
set of utility programs. Eventually, the new system no longer needed
the GECOS system as a development environment but could support
itself. The new system was given the name UNIX, a pun on the
name Multics coined by another member of the Computing Science
Research Center, Brian Kernighan. Although this early version of the
UNIX system held much promise, it could not realize its potential
until it was used in a real project. Thus, while providing a text
processing system for the patent department at Bell Laboratories,
the UNIX system was moved to a PDP-11 in 1971. The system was
characterized by its small size: 16K bytes for the system, 8K bytes
for user programs, a disk of 512K bytes, and a limit of 64K bytes per
file. After its early success, Thompson set out to implement a
Fortran compiler for the new system, but instead came up with the
language B, influenced by BCPL [Richards 69]. B was an interpretive
language with the performance drawbacks implied by such
languages, so Ritchie developed it into one he called C, allowing
generation of machine code, declaration of data types, and definition
of data structures. In 1973, the operating system was rewritten in C,
an unheard of step at the time, but one that was to have
tremendous impact on its acceptance among outside users. The
number of installations at Bell

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1.1 HISTORY 3 Laboratories grew to about 25, and a UNIX Systems
Group was formed to provide internal support. At this time, AT&T
could not market computer products because of a 1956 Consent
Decree it had signed with the Federal government, but it provided
the UNIX system to universities who requested it for educational
purposes. AT&T neither advertised, marketed, nor supported the
system, in adherence to the terms of the Consent Decree.
Nevertheless, the system's popularity steadily increased. In 1974,
Thompson and Ritchie published a paper describing the UNIX system
in the Communications of the ACM [Thompson 74], giving further
impetus to its acceptance. By 1977, the number of UNIX system
sites had grown to about 500, of which 125 were in universities.
UNIX systems became popular in the operating telephone
companies, providing a good environment for program development,
network transaction operations services, and real-time services (via
MERT [Lycklama 78a]). Licenses of UNIX systems were provided to
commercial institutions as well as universities. In 1977, Interactive
Systems Corporation became the first Value Added Reseller (VARI of
a UNIX system, enhancing it for use in office automation
environments. 1977 also marked the year that the UNIX system was
first "ported" to a non-PDP machine (that is, made to run on another
machine with few or no changes), the lnterdata 8/32. With the
growing popularity of microprocessors, other companies ported the
UNIX system to new machines, but its simplicity and clarity tempted
many developers to enhance it in their own way, resulting in several
variants of the basic system. In the period from 1977 to 1982, Bell
Laboratories combined several AT&T variants into a single system,
known commercially as UNIX System III. Bell Laboratories later
added several features to UNIX System III, calling the new product
UNIX System V,2 and AT&T announced official support for System V
in January 1983. However, people at the University of California at
Berkeley had developed a variant to the UNIX system, the most
recent version of which is called 4.3 BSD for VAX machines,
providing some new, interesting features. This book will concentrate
on the description of UNIX System V and will occasionally talk about
features provided in the BSD system. By the beginning of 1984,

there were about 100,000 UNIX system installations in the world,
running on machines with a wide range of computing power from
microprocessors to mainframes and on machines across different
manufacturers' product lines. No other operating system can make
that claim. Several reasons have been suggested for the popularity
and success of the UNIX system. 1. Value Added Resellers add
specific applications to a computer system to satisfy a particular
market. They market the applications rather than the operating
system upon which they run. 2. What happened to System IV? An
internal version of the system evolved into System V.
4 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM • The system is written in a
high-level language, making it easy to read, understand, change,
and move to other machines. Ritchie estimates that the first system
in C was 20 to 40 percent larger and slower because it was not
written in assembly language, but the advantages of using a higher-
level language far outweigh the disadvantages (see page 1965 of
[Ritchie 78b]). • It has a simple user interface that has the power to
provide the services that users want. • It provides primitives that
permit complex programs to be built from simpler programs. • It
uses a hierarchical file system that allows easy maintenance and
efficient implementation. • It uses a consistent format for files, the
byte stream, making application programs easier to write. • It
provides a simple, consistent interface to peripheral devices. • It is a
multi-user, multiprocess system; each user can execute several
processes simultaneously. • It hides the machine architecture from
the user, making it easier to write programs that run on different
hardware implementations. The philosophy of simplicity and
consistency underscores the UNIX system and accounts for many of
the reasons cited above. Although the operating system and many of
the command programs are written in C, UNIX systems support
other languages, including Fortran, Basic, Pascal, Ada, Cobol, Lisp,
and Prolog. The UNIX system can support any language that has a
compiler or interpreter and a system interface that maps user
requests for operating system services to the standard set of
requests used on UNIX systems. 1.2 SYSTEM STRUCTURE Figure 1.1

depicts the high-level architecture of the UNIX system. The
hardware at the center of the diagram provides the operating system
with basic services that will be described in Section 1.5. The
operating system interacts directly3 with the hardware, providing
common services to programs and insulating them from hardware
idiosyncrasies. Viewing the system as a set of layers, the operating
system is commonly called the system kernel, or just the kernel,
emphasizing its 3. In some implementations of the UNIX system, the
operating system interacts with a native operating system that, in
turn, interacts with the underlying hardware and provides necessary
services to the system. Such configurations allow installations to run
other operating systems and their applications in parallel to the UNIX
system. The classic example of such a configuration is the MERT
system [Lycklama 78al. More recent configurations include
implementations for IBM System/370 computers [Felton 84] and for
UNIVAC 1100 Series computers [Bodenstab 84].
1.2 SYSTEM STRUCTURE Other application programs Other
application programs Figure 1.1. Architecture of UNIX Systems
isolation from user programs. Because programs are independent of
the underlying hardware, it is easy to move them between UNIX
systems running on different hardware if the programs do not make
assumptions about the underlying hardware. For instance, programs
that assume the size of a machine word are more difficult to move
to other machines than programs that do not make this assumption.
Programs such as the shell and editors (ed and w) shown in the
outer layers interact with the kernel by invoking a well defined set of
system calls. The system calls instruct the kernel to do various
operations for the calling program and exchange data between the
kernel and the program. Several programs shown in the figure are in
standard system configurations and are known as commands, but
private user programs may also exist in this layer as indicated by the
program whose name is a.out, the standard name for executable
files produced by the C compiler. Other application programs can
build on top of lower-level programs, hence the existence of the
outermost layer in the figure. For example, the standard C compiler,

cc, is in the outermost layer of the figure: it invokes a C
preprocessor,
6 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM two-pass compiler,
assembler, and loader (link-editor), all separate lower-level
programs. Although the figure depicts a two-level hierarchy of
application programs, users can extend the hierarchy to whatever
levels are appropriate. Indeed, the style of programming favored by
the UNIX system encourages the combination of existing programs
to accomplish a task. Many application subsystems and programs
that provide a high-level view of the system such as the shell,
editors, SCCS (Source Code Control System), and document
preparation packages, have gradually become synonymous with the
name "UNIX system." However, they all use lower-level services
ultimately provided by the kernel, and they avail themselves of these
services via the set of system calls. There are about 64 system calls
in System V, of which fewer than 32 are used frequently. They have
simple options that make them easy to use but provide the user with
a lot of power. The set of system calls and the internal algorithms
that implement them form the body of the kernel, and the study of
the UNIX operating system presented in this book reduces to a
detailed study and analysis of the system calls and their interaction
with one another. In short, the kernel provides the services upon
which all application programs in the UNIX system rely, and it
defines those services. This book will frequently use the terms "UNIX
system," "kernel," or "system," but the intent is to refer to the kernel
of the UNIX operating system and should be clear in context. 1.3
USER PERSPECTIVE This section briefly reviews high-level features
of the UNIX system such as the file system, the processing
environment, and building block primitives (for example, pipes).
Later chapters will explore kernel support of these features in detail.
1.3.1 The File System The UNIX file system is characterized by • a
hierarchical structure, • consistent treatment of file data, • the ability
to create and delete files, • dynamic growth of files, • the protection
of file data, • the treatment of peripheral devices (such as terminals
and tape units) as files. The file system is organized as a tree with a

single root node called root (written "/"); every non-leaf node of the
file system structure is a directory of files, and files at the leaf nodes
of the tree are either directories, regular files, or special device files.
The name of a file is given by a path name that describes how to
locate the file in the file system hierarchy. A path name is a
sequence of component names separated by slash characters; a
component is a sequence of characters that
1.3 USER PERSPECTIVE mjbmaury sh date who passwd src bin cmd
ttyOO ttyOl date.c who.c Figure 1.2. Sample File System Tree
designates a file name that is uniquely contained in the previous
(directory) component. A full path name starts with a slash character
and specifies a file that can be found by starting at the file system
root and traversing the file tree, following the branches that lead to
successive component names of the path name. Thus, the path
names "/etc/passwd", "/bin/who", and "/usr/src/cmd/who.c"
designate files in the tree shown in Figure 1.2, but "/bin/passwd"
and "/usr/src/date.c" do not. A path name does not have to start
from root but can be designated relative to the current directory of
an executing process, by omitting the initial slash in the path name.
Thus, starting from directory "/dev", the path name "ttyOl"
designates the file whose full path name is "/dev/ttyOl". Programs in
the UNIX system have no knowledge of the internal format in which
the kernel stores file data, treating the data as an unformatted
stream of bytes. Programs may interpret the byte stream as they
wish, but the interpretation has no bearing on how the operating
system stores the data. Thus, the syntax of accessing the data in a
file is defined by the system and is identical for all programs, but the
semantics of the data are imposed by the program. For example, the
text formatting program troff expects to find "new-line" characters at
the end of each line of text, and the system accounting program
acctcom expects to find fixed length records. Both programs use the
same system services to access the data in the file as a byte stream,
and internally, they parse the stream into a suitable format. If either
program discovers that the format is incorrect, it is responsible for
taking the appropriate action. Directories are like regular files in this

respect; the system treats the data in a directory as a byte stream,
but the data contains the names of the files in the directory in a
predictable format so that the operating system and programs such
as
8 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM Is (list the names and
attributes of files) can discover the files in a directory. Permission to
access a file is controlled by access permissions associated with the
file. Access permissions can be set independently to control read,
write, and execute permission for three classes of users: the file
owner, a file group, and everyone else. Users may create files if
directory access permissions allow it. The newly created files are leaf
nodes of the file system directory structure. To the user, the UNIX
system treats devices as if they were files. Devices, designated by
special device files, occupy node positions in the file system directory
structure. Programs access devices with the same syntax they use
when accessing regular files; the semantics of reading and writing
devices are to a large degree the same as reading and writing
regular files. Devices are protected in the same way that regular files
are protected: by proper setting of their (file) access permissions.
Because device names look like the names of regular files and
because the same operations work for devices and regular files,
most programs do not have to know internally the types of files they
manipulate. For example, consider the C program in Figure 1.3,
which makes a new copy of an existing file. Suppose the name of
the executable version of the program is copy. A user at a terminal
invokes the program by typing copy oldfile newfile where oldfile is
the name of the existing file and newfile is the name of the new file.
The system invokes main, supplying argc as the number of
parameters in the list argv, and initializing each member of the array
argv to point to a user-supplied parameter. In the example above,
argc is 3, argvfOj points to the character string copy (the program
name is conventionally the Oth parameter), argvflj points to the
character string oldfile, and argv[2] points to the character string
newfile. The program then checks that it has been invoked with the
proper number of parameters. If so, it invokes the open system call

"read-only" for the file oldfile, and if the system call succeeds,
invokes the creat system call to create newfile. The permission
modes on the newly created file will be 0666 (octal), allowing all
users access to the file for reading and writing. All system calls
return —1 on failure; if the open or creat calls fail, the program
prints a message and calls the exit system call with return status 1,
terminating its execution and indicating that something went wrong.
The open and creat system calls return an integer called a file
descriptor, which the program uses for subsequent references to the
files. The program then calls the subroutine copy, which goes into a
loop, invoking the read system call to read a buffer's worth of
characters from the existing file, and invoking the write system call
to write the data to the new file. The read system call returns the
number of bytes read, returning 0 when it reaches the end of file.
The program finishes the loop when it encounters the end of file, or
when there is some error on the read system call (it does not check
for write errors). Then it returns from copy and exits with return
status 0, indicating that the program completed successfully.
1.3 USER PERSPECTIVE #include <fcntl.h> char buffer[2048]; int
version ™ 1; /* Chapter 2 explains this */ main(argc, argv) int argc;
char *argv[]; { int fdold, fdnew; if (argc !=- 3) { printfC'need 2
arguments for copy programn"); exit(l); } fdold =- open(argv[l],
O_RDONLY); /* open source file read only */ if (fdold 1) { printf
("cannot open file %sn", argv[l]); exit(l); } fdnew - creat(argv[2],
0666); /* create target file rw for all */ if (fdnew -- -1) { printf
("cannot create file %sn", argv[2]); exit(l); } copy (fdold, fdnew);
exit@); copy (old, new) int old, new; { int count; while ((count -
readfold, buffer, sizeof(buffer))) > 0) write (new, buffer, count);
Figure 1.3. Program to Copy a File The program copies any files
supplied to it as arguments, provided it has permission to open the
existing file and permission to create the new file. The file can be a
file of printable characters, such as the source code for the program,
or it can contain unprintable characters, even the program itself.
Thus, the two

10 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM invocations copy copy.c
newcopy.c copy copy newcopy both work. The old file can also be a
directory. For instance, copy . dircontents copies the contents of the
current directory, denoted by the name ".", to a regular file,
"dircontents"; the data in the new file is identical, byte for byte, to
the contents of the directory, but the file is a regular file. (The
system call mknod creates a new directory.) Finally, either file can be
a device special file. For example, copy /dev/tty terminalread reads
the characters typed at the terminal (the special file /dev/tty is the
user's terminal) and copies them to the file terminalread, terminating
only when the user types the character control-d. Similarly, copy
/dev/tty /dev/tty reads characters typed at the terminal and copies
them back. 1.3.2 Processing Environment A program is an
executable file, and a process is an instance of the program in
execution. Many processes can execute simultaneously on UNIX
systems (this feature is sometimes called multiprogramming or
multitasking) with no logical limit to their number, and many
instances of a program (such as copy) can exist simultaneously in
the system. Various system calls allow processes to create new
processes, terminate processes, synchronize stages of process
execution, and control reaction to various events. Subject to their
use of system calls, processes execute independently of each other.
For example, a process executing the program in Figure 1.4 executes
the fork system call to create a new process. The new process,
called the child process, gets a 0 return value from fork and invokes
execl to execute the program copy (the program in Figure 1.3). The
execl call overlays the address space of the child process with the
file "copy", assumed to be in the current directory, and runs the
program with the user-supplied parameters. If the execl call
succeeds, it never returns because the process executes in a new
address space, as will be seen in Chapter 7. Meanwhile, the process
that had invoked fork (the parent) receives a non-0 return from the
call, calls wait, suspending its execution until copy finishes, prints
the message "copy done," and exits (every program exits at the end
of its main function, as arranged by standard C program libraries
that are linked during the compilation process). For example, if the

name of the executable program is run, and a user invokes the
program by
1.3 USER PERSPECTIVE 11 main(argc, argv) int argc; char *argv[];
/* assume 2 args: source if (forkO — 0) execlC'copy", "copy'
wait((int *) 0); printfC'copy donen"); } file and target file •/ ,
argvtl], argv[2], 0); Figure 1.4. Program that Creates a New Process
to Copy Files run oldfile newfile the process copies "oldfile" to
"newfile" and prints out the message. Although this program adds
little to the "copy" program, it exhibits four major system calls used
for process control: fork, exec, wait, and, discreetly, exit. Generally,
the system calls allow users to write programs that do sophisticated
operations, and as a result, the kernel of the UNIX system does not
contain many functions that are part of the "kernel" in other
systems. Such functions, including compilers and editors, are user-
level programs in the UNIX system. The prime example of such a
program is the shell, the command interpreter program that users
typically execute after logging into the system. The shell interprets
the first word of a command line as a command name: for many
commands, the shell forks and the child process execs the command
associated with the name, treating the remaining words on the
command line as parameters to the command. The shell allows three
types of commands. First, a command can be an executable file that
contains object code produced by compilation of source code (a C
program for example). Second, a command can be an executable file
that contains a sequence of shell command lines. Finally, a command
can be an internal shell command (instead of an executable file).
The internal commands make the shell a programming language in
addition to a command interpreter and include commands for
looping (for-in-do-done and while-do-done), commands for
conditional execution (if-then-else-fi), a "case" statement command,
a command to change the current directory of a process (cd), and
several others. The shell syntax allows for pattern matching and
parameter processing. Users execute commands without having to
know their types. The shell searches for commands in a given
sequence of directories, changeable by user request per invocation

of the shell. The shell usually executes a command synchronously,
waiting for the command to terminate before reading the next
command line. However, it also allows asynchronous execution,
where it reads the next command line and executes it without
waiting for the prior command to terminate. Commands executed
asynchronously are said to execute in the
12 GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM background. For example,
typing the command who causes the system to execute the program
stored in the file /bin/who,4 which prints a list of people who are
currently logged in to the system. While who executes, the shell
waits for it to finish and then prompts the user for another
command. By typing who & the system executes the program who in
the background, and the shell is ready to accept another command
immediately. Every process executing in the UNIX system has an
execution environment that includes a current directory. The current
directory of a process is the start directory used for all path names
that do not begin with the slash character. The user may execute the
shell command cd, change directory, to move around the file system
tree and change the current directory. The command line cd
/usr/src/uts changes the shell's current directory to the directory
"/usr/src/uts". The command line cd ../.. changes the shell's current
directory to the directory that is two nodes "closer" to the root node:
the component ".." refers to the parent directory of the current
directory. Because the shell is a user program and not part of the
kernel, it is easy to modify it and tailor it to a particular environment.
For instance, users can use the C shell to provide a history
mechanism and avoid retyping recently used commands, instead of
the Bourne shell (named after its inventor, Steve Bourne), provided
as part of the standard System V release. Or some users may be
granted use only of a restricted shell, providing a scaled down
version of the regular shell. The system can execute the various
shells simultaneously. Users have the capability to execute many
processes simultaneously, and processes can create other processes
dynamically and synchronize their execution, if desired. These
features provide users with a powerful execution environment.

Exploring the Variety of Random
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white, and he turned red, and he gave Kate looks which she could not
understand. It seemed to her as if he were always trying to apologise and
explain with his eyes; and what right had Bertie Hardwick to think that she
wanted anything explained or cared what he did? She was angry, she did
not quite know why—angry and wounded—hurt as if some one had struck
her, and she did not care to stop and ask or answer questions. She followed
Mrs. Anderson upstairs, listening doubtfully to Francesca’s voluble
explanation—how Mademoiselle had been disturbed by some sounds in the
house, ‘possibly my lady herself, though I was far from thinking so when I
left,’ said Francesca, pointedly; and how Mees Katta had insisted upon
going to mass with her?
Mrs. Anderson shook her head, but turned round to Kate at the door with
a softened look, which had something in it akin to Bertie’s. She kissed Kate,
though the girl half averted her face.
‘I do not blame you, my dear, but your uncle might not like it. You must
not go again,’ she said, thus gently placing the inferior matter in the first
place.
And they went in, to find the fire in the ante-room burning all alone, as
when Kate had left, and the calm little house looking in its best order, as if
nothing had ever happened there.

CHAPTER LII.
That was a curious day—a day full of strange excitement and suppressed
feeling—suppressed on all sides, yet betraying itself in some unexplainable
way. Mrs. Anderson made no explanation whatever of her early expedition
—at least to Kate; she did not even refer to it. She gave her a little lecture at
breakfast, while they sat alone together—for Ombra did not appear—about
the inexpediency of going with Francesca to church. ‘I know that you did
not mean anything, my darling,’ she said, tenderly; ‘but it is very touching
to see the poor people at their prayers, and I have known a girl to be led
away so, and to desert her own church. Such an idea must never be
entertained for you; you are not a private individual, Kate—you are a
woman with a great stake in the country, an example to many——’
‘Oh, I am so tired of hearing that I have a stake in the country!’ cried
Kate, who at that moment, to tell the truth, was sick of everything, and
loathed her life heartily, and everything she heard and saw.
‘But that is wrong,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘You must not be tired of such
an honour and privilege. You must be aware, Kate, that an ordinary girl of
your years would not be considered and studied as you have been. Had you
been only my dear sister’s child, and not the mistress of Langton-
Courtenay, even I should have treated you differently; though, for your own
good,’ Mrs. Anderson added, ‘I have tried as much as possible to forget
your position, and look upon you as my younger child.’
Kate’s heart was full—full of a yearning for the old undoubting love, and
yet a sense that it had been withdrawn from her by no fault of hers, which
made it impossible for her to make overtures of tenderness, or even to
accept them. She said, ‘I like that best;’ but she said it low, with her eyes
fixed upon her plate, and her voice choking. And perhaps her aunt did not
hear. Mrs. Anderson had deliberately mounted upon her high horse. She had
invoked, as it were, the assistance of her chief weakness, and was making
use of it freely. She said a good deal more about Kate’s position—about the
necessity of being faithful to one’s church, not only as a religious, but a
public duty; and thus kept up the discussion till breakfast was fairly over.
Then, as usual, Kate was left alone. Francesca had a private interview after

in her mistress’s room, but what was said to her was never known to
anyone. She left it looking as if tears still lay very near her eyes, but not a
word did she repeat of any explanation given to her—and, indeed, avoided
Kate, so that the girl was left utterly alone in the very heart of that small,
and once so tender, household.
And thus life went on strangely, in a mist of suppressed excitement, for
some days. How her aunt and cousin spent that time Kate could not tell. She
saw little of them, and scarcely cared to note what visits they received, or
what happened. In the seclusion of her own room she heard footsteps
coming and going, and unusual sounds, but took no notice; and from that
strange morning encounter, saw no more of the Berties until they made their
appearance suddenly one day in the forenoon, when Mr. Courtenay was
there; when they announced their immediate departure, and took their leave
at one and the same moment. The parting was a strange one; they all shook
hands stiffly with each other, as if they had been mere acquaintances. They
said not a word of meeting again; and the young men were both agitated,
looking pale and strange. When they left at last, Mr. Courtenay, in his airy
way, remarked that he did not think Florence had agreed with them. ‘They
look as if they were both going to have the fever,’ he said; ‘though, by-the-
bye, it is in Rome people have the fever, not in Florence.’
‘I suppose they are sorry to leave,’ said Mrs. Anderson, steadily; and
then the subject dropped.
It seemed to Kate as if the world went round and round, and then
suddenly settled back into its place. And by this time all was over—
everything had stopped short. There was no more shopping, nor even
packing. Francesca was equal to everything that remained to be done; and
the moment of their own departure drew very near.
Ombra drew down her veil as they were carried away out of sight of
Florence on the gentle bit of railway which then existed, going to the north.
And Mrs. Anderson looked back upon the town with her hands clasped tight
together in her lap, and tears in her eyes. Kate noted both details, but even
in her own mind drew no deductions from them. She herself was confused
in her head as well as in her heart, bewildered, uncertain, walking like some
one in a dream. The last person she saw in the railway-station was Antonio
Buoncompagni, with a bunch of violets in his coat. He walked as far as he
could go when the slow little train got itself into motion, and took off his

hat, with a little gesture which went to Kate’s heart. Poor Antonio!—had
she perhaps been unkind to him after all? There was something sad, and yet
not painful—something almost comforting in the thought.
And so they were really on their way again, and Florence was over like
yesterday when it is past, and like a tale that is told! How strange to think
so! A place never perhaps to be entered again—never, certainly, with the
same feelings as now. Ombra’s veil was down, and it was thick, and
concealed her, and tears stood in Mrs. Anderson’s eyes. They had their own
thoughts, too, though Kate had no clue to them. No clue! Probably these
thoughts dwelt upon things absolutely unknown to her—probably they too
were saying to themselves, ‘How strange to leave Florence in the past—to
be done with it!’ But had they left it in the past?
As for Mr. Courtenay, he read his paper, which he had just received from
England. There was a debate in it about some object which interested him,
and the Times was full of abuse of some of his friends. The old man
chuckled a little over this, as he sat on the comfortable side, with his back
towards the engine, and his rug tucked over his knees. He did not so much
as give Florence a glance as they glided away. What was Hecuba to him, or
he to Hecuba? Nothing had happened to him there. Nothing happened to
him anywhere—though his ward gave him a good deal of trouble. As for
this journey of his, it was a bore, but still it had been successful, which was
something, and he made himself extremely comfortable, and read over, as
they rolled leisurely along, every word of the Times.
And thus they travelled home.

CHAPTER LIII.
It is a curious sensation to return, after a long interval, to the home of one’s
youth, especially if one has had very great ideas of that home, and thought
it magnificent. Even a short absence changes most curiously this first
conception of grandeur. When Kate ran into Langton-Courtenay on her
return, rushing through the row of new servants, who bowed and curtseyed
in the hall, her sense of mortification and disappointment was intense.
Everything had shrunken somehow; the rooms were smaller, the ceilings
lower, the whole place diminished. Were these the rooms which she had
compared in her mind with the suite in which the English ambassadress
gave her ball? Kate stood aghast, blushing up to the roots of her hair, and
felt so mortified that she did not remember to do the honours to her aunt
and cousin. When she recollected, she went back to where they had placed
themselves in the great old hall, round the great fireplace. There was a
comfortable old-fashioned settle by it, and on this Mrs. Anderson had seated
herself, to warm her frozen fingers, and give Kate time to recover herself.
‘I have not the least doubt we shall find everything very comfortable,’
she said to the new housekeeper, who stood before her, curtseying in her
rustling silk gown, and wondering already whether she was to have three
mistresses, or which was to be the ‘lady of the house.’ Mrs. Spigot felt
instinctively that the place was not likely to suit her, when Kate ran against
the new housemaid, and made the new butler (Mr. Spigot) fall back out of
her way. This was not a dignified beginning for a young lady coming home;
and if the aunt was to be mistress, it was evident that the situation would
not be what the housekeeper thought.
‘My niece is a little excited by coming home,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘To-
morrow Miss Courtenay will be rested, and able to notice you all.’ And she
nodded to the servants, and waved her hand, dismissing them. If a feeling
passed through Mrs. Anderson’s mind, as she did so, that this was truly the
position that she ought to have filled, and that Kate, a chit of nineteen, was
not half so well endowed for it by nature as she herself would have been,
who can blame her? She gave a sigh at this thought, and then smiled
graciously as the servants went away, and felt that to have such a house, and
so many servants under her control, even provisionally, would be pleasant.

The housemaids thought her a very affable lady; but the upper servants
were not so enthusiastic. Mrs. Anderson had mounted upon her very highest
horse. She had put away all the vagaries of Italian life, and settled down
into the very blandest of British matrons. She talked again about proper
feeling, and a regard for the opinions of society. She had resumed all the
caressing and instructive ways which, at the very beginning of their
intercourse, she had adopted with Kate. And all these sentiments and habits
came back so readily that there were moments in which she asked herself,
‘Had she ever been in Italy at all?’ But yes, alas, yes! Never, if she lived a
thousand years, could she forget the three months just past.
Kate came back with some confusion to the hall, to find Ombra kneeling
on the great white sheepskin mat before the fire; while Mrs. Anderson sat
benignly on the settle, throwing off her shawls, and loosing her bonnet.
Ombra’s veil was thrown quite back; the ruddy glow threw a pink reflection
on her face, and her eyes seemed to have thawed in the cheery, warm
radiance. They were bright, and there seemed to be a little moisture in them.
She held out her hand to her cousin, and drew her down beside her.
‘This is the warmest place,’ said Ombra; ‘and your hands are like ice,
Kate. But how warm it feels to be at home in England! and I like your
house—it looks as if it had never been anything but a home.’
‘It is delightful!—it is much larger and handsomer than I supposed,’ said
Mrs. Anderson, from the settle. ‘With such a place to come home to, dear, I
think you may be pardoned a little sensation of pride.’
‘Oh! do you think so?’ said Kate, gratified. ‘I am so very glad you like it.
It seems to me so insignificant, after all we have seen. I used to think it was
the biggest, the finest, the most delightful house in the world; but if you
only knew how the roofs have come down, and the rooms have shrunk!—I
feel as if I could both laugh and cry.’
‘That is quite natural—quite natural. Kate, I have sent the servants away.
I thought you would be better able to see them to-morrow,’ said Mrs.
Anderson. ‘But when you have warmed yourself, I think we may ask for
Mrs. Spigot again, and go over the rooms, and see which we are to live in.
It will not be necessary to open the whole house for us three, especially in
Winter. Besides our bed-rooms and the dining-room, I think a snug little
room that we can make ourselves comfortable in—that will be warm, and
not too large——’

It pleased Mrs. Anderson to sit there in the warmth and stillness, and
make all these suggestions. The big house gave her a sensible pleasure. It
was delicious to think that a small room might be chosen for comfort, while
there were miles of larger ones all at her orders. She smiled and beamed
upon the two girls on the hearth. And indeed it was a pretty picture—Kate
began to glow and brighten, with her hat off, and her bright hair shining in
the firelight. Her travelling-dress was trimmed round the throat with white
fur, like a bird’s plumage, which caught a pink tinge too from the firelight,
and seemed to caress her, nestling against her pretty cheek. The journey,
and the arrival, and all the excitement had driven away, for the moment at
least, all mists and clouds, and there was a pretty conflict in her face—half
pleasure to be at home, half whimsical discontent with home. Ombra with
her veil quite back, and her face cleared also of some other mystical veil,
had her hand on Kate’s shoulder, and was looking at her kindly, almost
tenderly; and one of Ombra’s cheeks was getting more than pink—it was
crimson in the genial glow; she held up her hand to shield it, which looked
transparent against the firelight. Mrs. Anderson looked very complacently,
very fondly at both. Now that everything was over, she said to herself, and
they had got home, surely at least a little interval of calm might come. She
shut her eyes and her ears, and refused to look forward, refused to think of
the seeds sown, and the results that must come from them. She had been
carried away to permit and even sanction many things that her conscience
disapproved; but perhaps the Fates would exact no vengeance this time—
perhaps all would go well. She looked at Ombra, and it seemed to her that
her child, after so many agitations, looked happy—yes, really happy—not
with feverish joy or excitement, but with a genial quiet that belonged to
home. Oh! if it might be so?—and why might it not be so?—at least for a
time.
Mr. Courtenay had stayed in town, and the three ladies were alone in the
house. They settled down in a few days into ease and comfort which, after
their travelling, was very sweet. Things were different altogether from what
they had been in the Shanklin cottage; and though Mrs. Anderson was in the
place of Kate’s guardian, yet Kate was no longer a child, to be managed for
and ruled in an arbitrary way. It was now that the elder lady showed her
wisdom. It was a sensible pleasure to her to govern the great house; here at
last she seemed to have scope for her powers; but yet, though she ruled, she
did so from the background; with heroic self-denial she kept Kate in the

position she was so soon to occupy by right, trained her for it, guided her
first steps, and taught her what to do.
‘When you are of age, this is how you must manage,’ she would say.
‘But when I am of age, why should not you manage for me?’ Kate
replied; and her aunt made no answer.
They had come together again, and the old love had asserted itself once
more. The mysteries unexplained had been buried by common consent.
Kate lulled her own curiosity to rest, and when various questions came to
the very tip of her tongue, she bit and stilled that unruly member, and made
a not unsuccessful effort to restrain herself. But it was a hard discipline, and
strained her strength. Sometimes, when she saw the continual letters which
her aunt and cousin were always receiving, curiosity would give her a
renewed pinch. But generally she kept herself down, and pretended not to
see the correspondence, which was so much larger than it ever used to be.
She was so virtuous even as not to look at the addresses of the letters. What
good would it do her to know who wrote them? Of course some must be
from the Berties, one, or both—what did it matter? The Berties were
nothing to Kate; and, whatever the connection might be, Kate had evidently
nothing to do with it, for it had never been told her. With this reasoning she
kept herself down, though she was always sore and disposed to be cross
about the hour of breakfast. Mrs. Anderson, for her part, would never see
the crossness. She petted Kate, and smoothed her down, and read out, with
anxious conciliation, scraps from Lady Barker’s letters, and others of a
similarly indifferent character; while, in the meantime, the other letters,
ones which were not indifferent nor apt for quotation, were read by Ombra.
The moment was always a disagreeable one for Kate—but she bore it, and
made no sign.
But to live side by side with a secret has a very curious effect upon the
mind; it sharpens some faculties and deadens others in the strangest way.
Kate had now a great many things to think of, and much to do; people came
to call, hearing she had come home; and she made more acquaintances in a
fortnight than she had done before in a year. And yet, notwithstanding this, I
think it was only a fortnight that the reign of peace and domestic happiness
lasted. During that time, she made the most strenuous effort a girl could
make to put out of her mind the recollection that there was something in the
lives of her companions that had been concealed from her. Sometimes,

indeed, when she sat by her cousin’s side, there would suddenly rise up
before her a glimpse of that group at the doorway on the Lung-Arno, and
the scared look with which Ombra had rushed away; or some one of the
many evening scenes when she was left out, and the other four, clustered
about the table, would glide across her eyes like a ghost. Why was she left
out? What difference would it have made to them, if they had made her one
of themselves—was she likely to have betrayed their secret? And then
Bertie Hardwick’s troubled face would come before her, and his looks, half-
apologetic, half-explanatory; looks, which, now she thought of them,
seemed to have been so very frequent. Why was he always looking at her,
as if he wanted to explain; as if he were disturbed and ill at ease; as if he
felt her to be wronged? Though, of course, she was not in the least
wronged, Kate said to herself, proudly; for what was it to her if all the
Berties in the world had been at Ombra’s feet?—Kate did not want them!
Of that, at least, she was perfectly sure.
Mrs. Anderson’s room was a large one; opening into that of Ombra on
the one side, and into an ante-room, which they could sit in, or dress in, or
read and write in, for it was furnished for all uses. It was a petit
appartement, charmingly shut in and cosy, one of the best set of rooms in
the house, which Kate had specially chosen for her aunt. Here the mother
and daughter met one night after a very tranquil day, over the fire in the
central room. It was a bright fire, and the cosy chairs that stood before it
were luxurious, and the warm firelight flickered through the large room,
upon the ruddy damask of the curtains, and the long mirror, and all the
pretty furnishings. Ombra came in from her own room in her dressing-
gown, with her dusky hair over her shoulders. Dusky were her looks
altogether, like evening in a Winter’s twilight. Her dressing-gown was of a
faint grey-blue—not a pretty colour in itself, but it suited Ombra; and her
long hair fell over it almost to her waist. She came in noiselessly to her
mother’s room, and it was her voice which first betrayed her presence there.
Mrs. Anderson had been sitting thinking, with a very serious face; she
started at her child’s voice.
‘I have been trying my very best to bear it—I think I have done my very
best; I have smiled, and kept my temper, and tried to look as if I were not
ready to die of misery. Oh! mamma, mamma, can this go on for ever? What
am I to do?’

‘Oh! Ombra, for God’s sake have patience!’ cried her mother—‘nothing
new has happened to-day?’
‘Nothing new!—is it nothing new to have those girls here from the
Rectory, jabbering about their brother? and to know that he is coming—
next week, they say? We shall be obliged to meet—and how are we to
meet? when I think how I took leave of him last! My life is odious to me!’
cried the girl, sinking down in a chair, and covering her face with her hands.
‘I don’t know how to hold up my head and look those people in the face;
and it is worse when no one comes. To live for a whole long, endless day
without seeing a strange face, with Kate’s eyes going through and through
me——’
‘Don’t make things worse than they are,’ said her mother, ‘Oh! Ombra,
have a little patience! Kate suspects nothing.’
‘Suspects!’ cried Ombra—‘she knows there is something—not what it is,
but that there is something. Do you think I don’t see her looks in the
morning, when the letters come? Poor Kate! she will not look at them; she
is full of honour—but to say she does not suspect!’
‘I don’t know what to say to satisfy you, Ombra,’ said her mother. ‘Did
not I beg you on my knees to take her into your confidence? It would have
made everything so much easier, and her so much happier.’
‘Oh! mamma, my life is hard enough of itself—don’t make it harder and
harder!’ cried Ombra; and then she laid down her head upon her mother’s
shoulder, and wept. Poor Mrs. Anderson bore it all heroically; she kissed
and soothed her child, and persuaded her that it could not last long—that
Bertie would bring good news—that everything would be explained and
atoned for in the end. ‘There can be no permanent harm, dear—no
permanent harm,’ she repeated, ‘and everybody will be sorry and forgive.’
And so, by degrees, Ombra was pacified, and put to bed, and forgot her
troubles.
This was the kind of scene which took place night after night in the
tranquil house, where all the three ladies seemed so quietly happy. Kate
heard no echo of it through the thick walls and curtains, yet not without
troubles of her own was the heiress. The intimation of Bertie’s coming
disturbed her too. She thought she had got quite composed about the whole
matter, willing to wait until the secret should be disclosed, and the
connection between him and her cousin, whatever it was, made known. But

to have him here again, with his wistful looks, and the whole mystery to be
resumed, as if there had been no interruption of it—this was more than Kate
felt she could bear.

CHAPTER LIV.
The news which had made so much commotion in the Hall came from the
Rectory in a very simple way. Edith and Minnie had come up to call. Their
mother rather wished them to do so frequently. She urged upon them that it
might demand a little sacrifice of personal feeling, yet that personal feeling
was always a thing that ought to be sacrificed—it was a good moral
exercise, irrespective of everything else; and Miss Courtenay was older,
and, no doubt, more sensible than when she went away—not likely to shock
them as she did then—and that it would be good for her to see a good deal
of them, and pleasant for people to know that they went a good deal to the
Hall. All this mass of reasoning was scarcely required, yet Edith and
Minnie, on the whole, were glad to know that it was their duty to visit Kate.
They both felt deeply that a thing which you do as a duty takes a higher
rank than a thing you do as a pleasure; and their visits might have taken that
profane character had not all this been impressed upon them in time.
‘Oh! Miss Courtenay, we have such news,’ said Edith; and Minnie
added, in a parenthesis (‘We are so happy!’) ‘Dear Bertie is coming home
for a few days. He wrote that he was so busy, he could not possibly come;
but papa insisted’ (‘I am so glad papa insisted,’ from Minnie, who was the
accompaniment), ‘and so he is coming—just for two days. He is going to
bring us the things he bought for us at Florence.’ (‘Oh! I do so want to see
them!’) ‘You saw a great deal of him at Florence, did you not?’
‘Yes, we saw him—a great many times,’ said Kate, noticing, under her
eyelids, how Ombra suddenly caught her breath.
‘He used to mention you in his letters at first—only at first. I suppose
you made too many friends to see much of each other.’ (‘Bertie is such a
fellow for society.’) ‘He is reading up now for the bar. Perhaps you don’t
know that he has given up the church?’
‘I think I heard him say so,’ answered Kate.
And then there was a little pause. The Hardwick girls thought their great
news was received very coldly, and were indignant at the want of interest
shown in ‘our Bertie!’After awhile Edith explained, with some dignity:

‘Of course my brother is very important to us’ (‘He is just the very nicest
boy that ever was!’ from Minnie), ‘though we can’t expect others to take the
same interest——’
Kate had looked up by instinct, and she caught Ombra’s eyes, which
were opened in a curious little stare, with an elevation of the eyebrows
which spoke volumes. Not the same interest! Kate’s heart grew a little sick
—she could not tell why—and she turned away, making some conventional
answer, she did not know what. A pause again, and then Mrs. Anderson
asked, without looking up from her work:
‘Is Mr. Hardwick coming to the Rectory alone?’
‘Oh, yes! At least we think so,’ said the two girls in one.
‘I ask because he and his cousin were so inseparable,’ said Mrs.
Anderson, smiling. ‘We used to say that when one was visible the other
could not be far off.’
‘Oh! you mean Bertie Eldridge,’ said Edith. ‘No, I am sure he is not
coming. Papa does not like our Bertie to be so much with him as he has
been. We do not think Bertie Eldridge a nice companion for him,’ said the
serious young woman, who rather looked down upon the boys, and echoed
her parents’ sentiments, without any sense of inappropriateness. ‘No, we
don’t at all like them to be so much together,’ said Minnie. Again Kate
turned round instinctively. This time Ombra was smiling, almost laughing,
with quite a gay light in her eyes.
‘Of course that is a subject beyond me,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘They
seemed much attached to each other.’ And then the matter dropped, and the
girls entered upon parish news, which left them full scope for prattle. Edith
was engaged to be married to a neighbouring clergyman, and, accordingly,
she was more than ever clerical and parochial in all her ways of thinking;
while Minnie looked forward with a flutter, half of fear and half of
excitement, to becoming the eldest Miss Hardwick, and having to manage
the Sunday School and decorate the church by herself.
‘What shall I do when Edith is married?’ was the burden of all the talk
she ventured upon alone. ‘Mamma is so much occupied, she can’t give very
much assistance,’ she said. ‘Oh! dear Miss Courtenay, if you would come
and help me sometimes when Edith goes away!’
‘I will do anything I can,’ said Kate, shortly. And the two girls withdrew
at last, somewhat chilled by the want of sympathy. Had they but known

what excitement, what commotion, their simple news carried into that still
volcano of a house!
He was to come in a week. Kate schooled herself to be very strong, and
think nothing of it, but her heart grew sick when she thought of the Florence
scenes all over again—perhaps worse, for at Florence at least there were
two. And to Ombra the day passed with feverish haste, and all her pretences
at tranquillity and good humour began to fail in the rising tide of
excitement.
‘I shall be better again when he has gone away,’ she said to her mother.
‘But, oh! how can I—how can I take it quietly? Could you, if you were in
my position? Think of all the misery and uncertainty. And he must be
coming for a purpose. He would not come unless he had something to say.’
‘Oh! Ombra, if there was anything, why should it not be said in a letter?’
cried her mother. ‘You have letters often enough. I wish you would just put
them in your pocket, and not read them at the breakfast table. You keep me
in terror lest Kate should see the handwriting or something. After all our
precautions——’
‘Can you really suppose that Kate is so ignorant?’ said Ombra. ‘Do you
think she does not know well enough whom my letters are from?’
‘Then, for God’s sake, if you think so, let me tell her, and be done with
this horrible secret,’ cried her mother. ‘It kills me to keep up this
concealment; and if you think she knows, why, why should it go on?’
‘You are so impetuous, mamma!’ said Ombra, with a smile. ‘There is a
great difference between her guessing and direct information procured from
ourselves. And how can we tell what she might do? She would interfere; it
is her nature. You could not trust anything so serious to such a child.’
‘Kate is not a child now,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘And oh! Ombra, if you
will consider how ungrateful, how untrue, how unkind it is——’
‘Stop, mamma!’ cried Ombra, with a flush of angry colour. ‘That is
enough—that is a great deal too much—ungrateful! Are we expected to be
grateful to Kate? You will tell me next to look up to her, to reverence her
——’
‘Ombra, you have always been hard upon Kate.’
‘It is not my fault,’ cried Ombra, suddenly giving way to a little burst of
weeping. ‘If you consider how different her position is—— All this

wretched complication—everything that has happened lately—would have
been unnecessary if I had had the same prospects as Kate. Everything
would have gone on easily then. There would have been no need for
concealment—no occasion for deceit.’
‘That is not Kate’s fault,’ said Mrs. Anderson, who was at her wit’s end.
‘Oh! mother, mother, don’t worry me out of my senses. Did I say it was
Kate’s fault? It is no one’s fault. But all we poor miserables must suffer as if
it were. And there is no help for it; and it is so hard, so hard to bear!’
‘Ombra, I told you to count the cost,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘I told you it
would be no easy business. You thought you had strength of mind for the
struggle then.’
‘And it turns out that I have no strength of mind,’ cried Ombra, almost
wildly. And then she started up and went to her own room again, where her
mother could hear her sighing and moaning till she fell asleep.
These night scenes took away from Mrs. Anderson’s enjoyment of the
great mansion and the many servants, and that luxurious room which Kate’s
affection had selected for her aunt. She sat over the fire when she was left
alone, and would wonder and ask herself what would come of it, what could
ever come of it, and whether it was possible that she should ever be happy
again. She looked back with a longing which she could not subdue upon the
humble days at Shanklin, when they were all so happy. The little tiny
cottage, the small rooms, all rose up before her. The drawing-room itself
was not half so large as Mrs. Anderson’s bed-room at Langton-Courtenay.
But what happy days these had been! She was not an old woman, though
she was Ombra’s mother. It was not as if life was nearly over for her, as if
she could look forward to a speedy end of all her troubles. And she knew
better than Ombra that somehow or other the world always exacts
punishment, whether immediately or at an after period, from those who
transgress its regulations. She said to herself mournfully that things do not
come right in life as they do in story-books. Her daughter had taken a weak
and foolish step, and she too had shared in the folly by consenting to it. She
had done so, she could not explain to herself why, in a moment of
excitement. And though Ombra was capable of hoping that some wonderful
chain of accidents might occur to solve every difficulty, Mrs. Anderson was
not young enough, or inexperienced enough, to think anything of the kind
possible. Accidents happen, she was aware, when you do not want them,

not when you do. When a catastrophe is foreseen and calculated upon, it
never happens. In such a case, the most rotten vessel that ever sunk in a
storm will weather a cyclone. Fate would not interfere to help; and when
Mrs. Anderson considered how slowly and steadily the ordinary course of
nature works, and how little it is likely to suit itself to any pressure of
human necessity, her heart grew sick within her. She had a higher opinion
of her niece than Ombra had, and she knew that Kate would have been a
tower of strength and protection to them, besides all the embarrassment that
would have been avoided, and all the pain and shame of deceit. But what
could she do? The young people were stronger than she, and had overridden
all her remonstrances; and now all that could be done was to carry on as
steadily as possible—to conceal the secret—to hope that something might
happen, unlikely though she knew that was.
Thus was this gentle household distracted and torn asunder; for there is
no such painful thing in the world to carry about with one as a secret;—it
will thrust itself to the surface, notwithstanding the most elaborate attempts
to heap trifles and the common routine of life over it. It is like a living
thing, and moves, or breathes, or cries out at the wrong moment, disclosing
itself under the most elaborate covers; and finally, howsoever people may
deceive themselves, it is never really hidden. While we are throwing the
embroidered veil over it, and flattering ourselves that it is buried in
concealment dark as night, our friends all the time are watching it throb
under the veil, and wondering with a smile or a sigh, according to their
dispositions, how we can be so foolish as to believe that it is hidden from
them. The best we can do for our secret is to confuse the reality of it, most
often making it look a great deal worse than it is. And this was what Ombra
and her mother were doing, while poor Kate looked on wistful, seeing all
their transparent manœuvres; and a choking, painful sense of concealment
was in the air—a feeling that any moment some volcano might burst forth.

CHAPTER LV.
It was a week later before Bertie came. He was brought to call by his
mother and sisters in great delight and pomp; and then there ensued the
strangest scene, of which only half the company had the least
comprehension. The room which Kate had chosen as their sitting-room was
an oblong room, with another smaller one opening from it. This small room
was almost opposite the fireplace in the larger one, and made a draught
which some people—indeed, most people—objected to; but as the broad
open doorway was amply curtained, and a great deal of sun came in along
with the imaginary draught, the brightness of the place won the day against
all objections. The little room was thus preserved from the air of secrecy
and retirement common to such rooms. No one could retire to flirt there; no
one could listen unseen to conversations not intended for them. The piano
was placed in it, and the writing-table, under the broad recessed window,
which filled the whole end of it. It was light as a lantern, swept by the
daylight from side to side, and the two fires kept it as warm as it was bright.
When Mrs. Hardwick sailed in, bearing under her convoy her two blooming
girls close behind her, and the tall brother towering over their heads, a more
proud or happy woman could not be.
‘I have brought my Bertie to see you,’ she said, all the seriousness of that
‘sense of duty’ which weighed upon her ordinary demeanour melting for the
moment in her motherly delight and pride. ‘He was so modest, we could
scarcely persuade him to come. He thought you might think he was
presuming on your acquaintance abroad, and taking as much liberty as if he
had been an intimate——’
‘I think Mr. Hardwick might very well take as much liberty as that,’
cried Kate, moved, in spite of herself, to resentment with this obstinate
make-believe. Her aunt looked up at her with such pain in her eyes as is
sometimes seen in the eyes of animals, who can make us no other protest.
‘We are very glad to see Mr. Bertie again,’ said Mrs. Anderson, holding
out her hand to him with a smile. ‘He is a Shanklin acquaintance, too. We
are old friends.’

And he shook hands with all of them solemnly, his face turning all
manner of colours, and his eyes fixed on the ground. Ombra was the last to
approach, and as she gave him her hand, she did not say a word; neither did
she lift her eyes to look at him. They stood by each other for a second, hand
in hand, with eyes cast down, and a flush of misery upon both their faces.
Was it merely misery? It could not but be painful, meeting thus, they who
had parted so differently; but Kate, who could not remove her eyes from
them, wondered, out of the midst of the sombre cloud which seemed to
have come in with Bertie, and to have wrapped her round—wondered what
other feeling might be in their minds. Was it not a happiness to stand
together even now, and here?—to be in the same room?—to touch each
other’s hands? Even amid all this pain of suppression and concealment was
not there something more in it? She felt as if fascinated, unable to withdraw
her eyes from them; but they remained together only for a moment; and
Bertie’s sisters, who did not think Miss Anderson of much importance, did
not even notice the meeting. Bertie himself withdrew to Mrs. Anderson’s
side, and began to talk to her and to his mother. The girls, disappointed (for
naturally they would have preferred that he should make himself agreeable
to the heiress), sat down by Kate. Ombra dropped noiselessly on a chair
close to the doorway between the two rooms; and after a few minutes she
said to her cousin, ‘Will you pardon me if I finish my letter for the post?’
and went into the inner room, and sat down at the writing-table.
‘She writes a great deal, doesn’t she?’ said Edith Hardwick. ‘Is she
literary, Miss Courtenay? I asked Bertie, but he could not tell me. I thought
she would not mind doing something perhaps for the “Parish Magazine.”’
‘Edith does most of it herself,’ said Minnie. (‘Oh! Minnie, for shame!’)
‘And do you know, Miss Courtenay, she had something in the last “Monthly
Packet.”’ (‘Please don’t, Minnie, please! What do you suppose Miss
Courtenay cares?’) ‘I shall bring it up to show you next time I come.’
‘Indeed, you shall do nothing of the kind!’ said Edith, blushing. And
Kate made a pretty little civil speech, which would have been quite real and
genuine, had not her mind been so occupied with other things; but with the
drama actually before her eyes, how could she think of stories in the
‘Monthly Packet?’ Her eyes went from one to another as they sat with the
whole breadth of the room between them; and this absorption made her
look much more superior and lofty than she was in reality, or had any
thought of being. Yes, she said to herself, it was best so—they could not

possibly talk to each other as strangers. It was best that they should thus get
out of sight of each other almost—avoid any intercourse. But how strange it
was!
‘Don’t you think it is odd that Bertie, knowing the world as he does,
should be so shy?’ said Edith. (‘Oh! he is so shy!’ cried Minnie.) ‘He made
as many excuses as a frightened little girl. “They won’t want to see me,” he
said. “Miss Courtenay will know it is not rudeness on my part if I don’t call.
Why should I go and bother them?” We dragged him here!’
‘We dragged him by the hair of his head,’ said Minnie, who was the wit
of the family.
And Kate did her best to laugh.
‘I did not think he had been so shy,’ she said. ‘He wanted, I suppose, to
have you all to himself, and not to lose his time making visits. How long is
he to stay?’
Edith and Minnie looked at each other. The question had already been
discussed between their mother and themselves whether Bertie would be
asked to dinner, or whether, indeed, they might not all be asked, with the
addition of Edith’s betrothed, who was visiting also at the Rectory. They all
thought it would be a right thing for Kate to do; and, of course, as Mrs.
Anderson was there, it would be so easy, and in every way so nice. They
looked at each other, accordingly, with a little consciousness.
‘He is to stay till Monday, I think,’ said Edith; ‘or perhaps we might coax
him to give us another day, if——’ She was going to say if there was any
reason, but that seemed a hint too plain.
‘That is not a very long visit,’ said Kate. And then, without a hint of a
dinner-party, she plunged into the parish, that admirable ground of escape in
all difficulties.
They had got into the very depths of charities, and coals, and saving-
clubs, when Mrs. Hardwick rose.
‘We are such a large party, we must not inflict ourselves upon you too
long,’ said Mrs. Hardwick. She, too, was a little disappointed that there was
not a word about a dinner. She thought Mrs. Anderson should have known
what her duty was in the circumstances, and should have given her niece a
hint; ‘but I hope we shall all meet again before my son goes away.’

And then there was a second shaking of hands. When all was over, and
the party were moving off, Kate turned to Bertie, who was last.
‘You have not taken leave of Ombra,’ she said, looking full at him.
He coloured to his hair; he made her a confused bow, and hurried into
the room where Ombra was. Kate, with a sternness which was very strange
to her, watched the two figures against the light. Ombra did not move. She
spoke to him apparently without even looking up from her letter. A dozen
words or so—no more. Then there came a sudden cry from the other door,
by which the mother and daughters were going ‘Oh! we have forgotten
Miss Anderson!’ and the whole stream flowed back.
‘Indeed, it is Ombra’s fault; but she was writing for the post,’ exclaimed
her mother, calling to her.
Ombra came forward to the doorway, very pale, even to her lips, but
smiling, and shook hands three times, and repeated that it was her fault.
And then the procession streamed away.
‘That girl looks very unhealthy,’ Mrs. Hardwick said, when they were
walking down the avenue. ‘I shall try and find out from her mother if there
is consumption in the family, and advise them to try the new remedy. Did
you notice what a colour her lips were? She is very retiring, poor thing; and,
I must say, never puts herself the least in the way.’
‘Do you think she is pretty, Bertie?’ said the sisters, together.
‘Pretty? Oh! I can’t tell. I am no judge,’ said Bertie. ‘Look here, mamma,
I am going to see old Stokes, the keeper. He used to be a great friend of
mine. If I don’t make up to you before you reach home, I’ll be back at least
before it is dark.’
‘Before it is dark!’ said Mrs. Hardwick, in dismay. But Bertie was gone.
‘I suppose young men must have their way,’ she said, looking after him.
‘But you must not think, girls, that people are any the happier for having
their way. On the contrary, you who have been educated to submit have a
much better preparation for life. I hope dear Bertie will never meet with any
serious disappointment,’ she added, with a sigh.
‘Oh! mamma, serious disappointment! when he has always succeeded in
everything!’ cried the girls, in their duet.
‘For he could not bear it,’ said Mrs. Hardwick, shaking her head. ‘It
would be doubly, doubly hard upon him; for he has never been trained to

bear it—never, I may say, since he left the nursery, and got out of my
hands.’
At this time it was nearly three o’clock, a dull Winter afternoon, not
severe, but dim and mournful. It was the greyness of frost, however, not of
damp, which was in the air; and Kate, who was restless, announced her
intention of taking a long walk. She was glad to escape from this heavy
atmosphere of home; she said, somewhat bitterly, that it was best to leave
them together to unbosom themselves, to tell each other all those secrets
which were not to be confided to her; and to compare notes, no doubt, as to
how he was looking, and how they were to find favourable opportunities of
meeting again, Kate’s heart was sore—she was irritated by the mystery
which, after all, was so plain to her. She saw the secret thing moving
underneath the cover—the only difficulty she had was to decide what kind
of secret it was. What was the relationship between Bertie and Ombra?
Were they only lovers?—were they something more?—and what had Bertie
Eldridge to do with it? Kate, indignant, would not permit herself to think;
but the questions came surging up in her mind against her will. She had a
little basket in her hand. She was carrying some grapes and wine to old
Stokes, the disabled keeper, who was dying, and whom everybody made
much of. On her way to his cottage she had to pass that little nook where
the brook was, and where she had first seen Bertie Hardwick. It was the
first time she had seen it since her return, and she paused, half in anger and
bitterness, half with a softening swell of recollection. How rich, and sweet,
and warm, and delicious it had been that Summer evening, with the
blossom still on the hawthorns, and the grass like velvet, and the soft little
waterfall tinkling! How everything was changed!—the bushes all black
with frost, the trees bare of their foliage, with here and there a ragged red
leaf at the end of a bough, the brook tinkling with a sharp metallic sound.
Everything else was frozen and still—all the insect life of Summer, all the
movements and rustlings of grass and leaves and flowers. The flowers and
the leaves were gone; the grass bound fast in an icy coat. ‘But not more
different,’ Kate thought, ‘than were other matters—more important than the
grass and flowers.’
She was roused from her momentary reverie by the sound of a footstep
ringing clear and sharp along the frosty road; and before she could get out
of the shelter of the little coppice which encircled that haunt of her
childhood, Bertie Hardwick came suddenly up to her. The sight of her

startled the young man—but in what way? A flush of delight rushed over
his face—he brightened all over, as it seemed, eyes and mouth and every
feature. He came forward to her with impetuous steps, and took her hand
before she was aware.
‘I was thinking of you,’ he cried; ‘longing to meet you just here, not
believing it possible—oh, Kate!—— Miss Courtenay, I beg your pardon. I
—I forget what I was going to say.’
He did not give up her hand, though; he stood and gazed at her with such
pleasure in his eyes as could not be misconstrued. And then the most
curious phenomenon came into being—a thing most wonderful, not to be
explained. All the anger and the suspicion and the bitterness, suddenly, in a
moment, fled out of Kate’s heart—they fled like evil spirits exorcised and
put to flight by something better than they. Kate was too honest to conceal
what was in her mind. She did not draw away her hand; she looked at him
full with her candid eyes.
‘Mr. Bertie, I am very glad to have met you here. I can’t help
remembering; and I should be glad—very glad to meet you anywhere; but
——’
He dropped her hand; he put up both his own to his face, as if to cover
its shame; and then, with a totally changed tone, and a voice from which all
the gladness had gone, he said slowly:
‘I know; but I am not allowed to explain—I cannot explain. Oh! Kate,
you know no harm of me, do you? You have never known or heard that I
was without sense of honour? trust me, if you can! Nothing in it, not any
one thing, is my fault.’
Kate started as if she had been struck, and everything that had wounded
her came back in sevenfold strength. She could not keep even a tone of
contempt out of her voice.
‘I have heard,’ she said, ‘that there was honour among thieves: do you
throw the blame upon Ombra—all the blame? I suppose it is the way men
do. Good-bye, Mr. Hardwick!’ And, before he could say a word, she was
gone—flying past him, indignant, contemptuous, wounded to the core.
As she came back from the keeper’s cottage, when the afternoon was
duller than ever, and the sky seemed to be dropping over the tree-tops, Kate
thought she saw, in one of the roads which crossed the avenue, the flutter of
a lady’s shawl. The girl was curious in her excitement, and she paused

behind a tree to watch. After a short time the fluttering shawl drew nearer. It
was Ombra, clinging close to Bertie Hardwick’s arm—turning to him a pale
face full of care and anxiety. They were discussing their dark concerns—
their secrets. Kate rushed home without once stopping or drawing breath.

CHAPTER LVI.
This incident passed as all incidents do, and the blank of common life
returned. How short those moments of action are in existence, and how long
are the dull intervals—those intervals which count for nothing, and yet are
life itself! Bertie Hardwick went away only after sundry unsuccessful
efforts on the part of his family to unite the party from the Hall with that at
the Rectory. Mrs. Hardwick would willingly, very willingly, have asked
them to dinner, even after the disappointment of discovering that they did
not mean to ask Bertie. She was stopped, however, by a very commonplace
hindrance—where was she to find gentlemen enough on short notice to
balance all those three ladies? Mr. Hardwick, Bertie, and Edith’s betrothed
made the tale correct to begin with—but three more gentlemen in a country
parish on two days’ notice! It was impossible. All that Mrs. Hardwick could
do was to ask, deprecatingly, that the ladies would come to a family dinner,
‘very quiet,’ she said; ‘you must not suppose I mean a party.’ Mrs.
Anderson, with her best and most smiling looks, accepted readily. ‘But
Ombra is not very well,’ she said; ‘I fear I must ask you to excuse her. And
dear Kate has such a bad cold—she caught it walking across the park the
other evening to old Stokes the keeper’s cottage.’
‘To old Stokes!’ cried Mrs. Hardwick. ‘Why, my Bertie was there too.’
And she added, looking grave, after that burst of radiance, ‘The old man
was a great favourite with everybody. We all go to see him.’
‘So I hear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, smiling; and next day she put on her
best gown, poor soul! and went patiently down to the Rectory to dinner, and
made a great many apologies for her girls. She did not enjoy it much, and
she had to explain that the first chill of England after Italy had been too
much for Kate and Ombra. ‘We had lived in the Isle of Wight for some
years before,’ she added, ‘so that this is almost their first experience of the
severity of Winter. But a few days indoors I hope will make them all right.’
Edith Hardwick could not believe her eyes when, next day, the day
before Bertie left, she saw Miss Anderson walking in the park. ‘Do you
think it possible it was not true?’ she and her sister asked each other in
consternation; but neither they, nor wiser persons than they, could have

determined that question. Ombra was not well, nor was Kate. They were
both disturbed in their youthful being almost beyond the limits of self-
control. Mrs. Anderson had, in some respects, to bear both their burdens;
but she said to herself, with a sigh, that her shoulders were used to it. She
had borne the yoke in her youth, she had been trained to bear a great deal,
and say very little about it. And so the emotion of the incident gradually
died away, growing fainter and larger in the stillness, and the monotony
came back as of old!
But, oh! how pleasant the monotony of old would have been, how
delightful, had there been nothing but the daily walks, the daily talks, the
afternoon drives, the cheerful discussions, and cheerful visits, which had
made their simple life at Shanklin so sweet! All that was over, another cycle
of existence had come in.
I think another fortnight had elapsed since Bertie’s visit, and everything
had been very quiet—and the quiet had been very intolerable. Sometimes
almost a semblance of confidential intercourse would be set up among
them, and Ombra would lean upon Kate, and Kate’s heart melt towards
Ombra. This took place generally in the evening, when they sat together in
the firelight before the lamp was brought, and talked the kind of shadowy
talk which belongs to that hour.
‘Look at my aunt upon the wall!’ Kate cried, one evening, in momentary
amusement. ‘How gigantic she is, and how she nods and beckons at us!’
Mrs. Anderson was chilly, and had placed her chair in front of the fire.
‘She is no more a shadow than we all are,’ said Ombra. ‘When the light
comes, that vast apparition will disappear, and she will be herself. Kate,
don’t you see the parable? We are all stolen out of ourselves, made into
ghosts, till the light comes.’
‘I don’t understand parables,’ said Kate.
‘I wish you did this one,’ said Ombra, with a sigh, ‘for it is true.’ And
then there was silence for a time, a silence which Kate broke by saying,
‘There is the new moon. I must go and look at her.’
Not through the glass, dear—it is unlucky,’ said Mrs. Anderson; but Kate
took no notice. She went into the inner room, and watched the new moon
through the great window. A cold, belated, baby moon, looking as if it had
lost its way somehow in that blue waste of sky. And the earth looked cold,
chilled to the heart, as much as could be seen of it, the tree-tops cowering

together, the park frozen. She stood there in a reverie, and forgot about the
time, and where she was. The bustle behind her of the lamp being brought
in did not disturb Kate, and seeing her at the window, the servant who came
with the lights discreetly forbore to disturb her, and left the curtains
undrawn. But, from what followed, it was evident that nobody else
observed Kate, and she was still deep in her musings, when she was
startled, and brought to instant life, by a voice which seemed to ring
through the room to her like a trumpet-note of defiance.
‘Mother, this cannot go on!’ Ombra cried out all at once. ‘If it lasts much
longer I shall hate her. I shall want to kill her!’
‘Ombra!’
‘It is true, I shall want to kill her! Oh! not actually with my hands! One
never knows what one could do till one is tempted. Still I think I would not
touch her. But, God help us, mother, God help us! I hate her now!’
‘God help you, indeed, my unhappy child!’ cried her mother. ‘Oh!
Ombra, do you know you are breaking my heart?’
‘My own was broken first,’ cried Ombra; and there was a ferocious and
wild force in what she said, which thrilled through and through the listener,
now just beginning to feel that she should not be here, but unable to stir in
her great horror and astonishment. ‘My own was broken first. What does it
matter? I thought I could brave everything; but to have him sent here for her
sake—because she would be the most fit match for him! to have her come
again between him and me——’
‘She never came between him and you—poor Kate!—she never thought
of him. Has it not been proved that it was only a fancy? Oh! Ombra, how
ungrateful, how unkind you are to her!’
‘What must I be grateful for?’ cried Ombra. ‘She has always been in my
way, always! She came between you and me. She took half away from me
of what was all mine. Would you hesitate, and doubt, and trouble, as you
do, if it were not for Kate? She has always been in my way! She has been
my enemy, not my friend. If she did not really come between him and me,
then I thought so, and I had all the anguish and sorrow as if it had been true.
And now he is to be sent here to meet her—and I am to put up with it, he
says, as it will give us means of meeting. But I will not put up with it!’ cried
Ombra, her voice rising shrill with passion—‘I cannot; it is asking too
much. I would rather not meet him than meet him to be watched by Kate’s

eyes. He has no right to come here on such a pretence. I would rather kill
her—I would rather never see him again!’
‘Oh! Ombra, how can you tell who may hear you?’ cried her mother,
putting up her hand as if to stop her mouth.
‘I don’t care who hears me!’ said Ombra, pale and sullen.
And then there was a rustle and movement, and both started, looking up
with one impulse. In the twilight right beyond the circle of the lamplight,
white as death, with a piteous gaze that neither could ever forget, stood
Kate. Mrs. Anderson sprang to her feet with a cry; Ombra said not a word—
she sat back in her chair, and kept her startled eyes upon her cousin—great
dilated eyes, awakened all in a minute to what she had done.
‘Kate, you have heard what she has said?’
‘Yes, I have heard it,’ she said, faintly. ‘I did not mean to; but I was
there, and I thought you knew. I have heard everything. Oh! it does not
matter. It hurts at present, but it will go off after a while.’
She tried to smile, and then she broke down and cried. Mrs. Anderson
went to her and threw her arms around her; but Kate put her aunt gently
away. She looked up through her tears, and shook her head with the best
smile she could muster.
‘No, it is not worth while,’ she said,—‘not any more. I have been wrong
all the time. I suppose God did not mean it so. I had no natural mother or
sister, and you can’t get such things except by nature. Don’t let us say any
more about it,’ she added, hastily brushing the tears from her eyes. ‘I am
very sorry you have suffered so much on my account, Ombra. If I had only
known—— And I never came between you and anyone—never dreamt of
doing it—never will, never—you may be sure of that. I wanted my aunt to
love me—that was natural—but no one else.’
‘Kate, I did not mean it,’ faltered Ombra, her white face suddenly
burning with a blush of passionate shame. She had never realised the
meanness of her jealousies and suspicions till this moment. Her mother’s
remonstrances had never opened her eyes; but in a moment, in this anguish
of being found out, she found out herself, and saw through her cousin’s
eyes, as it were, how contemptible it all was.
‘I think you meant it. I don’t think you could have spoken so had you not
meant it,’ said Kate, with composure. And then she sat down, and they all
looked at each other, Mrs. Anderson standing before the two girls, wringing

her hands. I think they realised what had happened better than she did. Her
alarm and misery were great. This was a quarrel between her two children
—a quarrel which it was very dreadful to contemplate. They had never
quarrelled before; little misunderstandings might have arisen between them,
but these it was always possible to smooth down; but this was a quarrel.
The best thing to do, she felt, was that they should have it out. Thus for
once her perception failed her. She stood frightened between them, looking
from one to another, not certain on which side the volcano would burst
forth. But no volcano burst forth; things had gone too far for that.
As for Kate, she did not know what had come over her. She had become
calm without knowing how. All her agitation passed away, and a dead
stillness succeeded—a stillness which made her afraid. Two minutes ago
her heart and body had been tingling with darts of pain. She had felt the
blow everywhere—on her head, which ached and rung as if she had been
struck—on her heart, which seemed all over dull pain—even in her limbs,
which did not feel able to support her. But now all had altered; a mysterious
numbness crept from her feet up to her heart and her head. She did not feel
anything; she saw Ombra’s big, startled eyes straining at her, and Mrs.
Anderson, standing by, wringing her hands; but neither the one nor the
other brought any gleam of feeling to her mind.
‘It is a pity we came here,’ she said, slowly—‘a great pity, for people
will discuss everything—I suppose they always do. And I don’t know,
indeed, what is best; I am not prepared to propose anything; all seems dark
to me. I cannot go on standing in Ombra’s way—that is all I know. I will
not do it. And perhaps, if we were all to think it over to-night, and tell what
we think to-morrow morning——’ she said, with a smile, which was very
faint, and a strong indication to burst forth instead into tears.
‘Oh! my darling!’ said Mrs. Anderson, bewildered by this extraordinary
calm.
Kate made a little strange gesture. It was the same with which she had
put her aunt away. ‘Don’t!’ she said, under her breath. She could bear what
Ombra had said after the first astonishing outburst, but she could not bear
that caressing—those sweet names which belong only to those who are
loved. Don’t! A touch would have made her recoil—a kiss would have
driven her wild and raving, she thought. This was the horror of it all—not
that they had quarrelled, but that they had pretended to love her, and all the

time had been hating her—or, at the best, had been keeping each other up to
the mark by thought of the gratitude and kindness they owed her. Kindness
and gratitude!—and yet they had pretended to love.
‘Perhaps it is better I should not say anything,’ said Ombra, with another
flush, which this time was that of rising anger. ‘I ought not to have spoken
as I did, but I make no apologies—it would be foolish to do so. You must
form your own opinion, and nothing that I could say would change it. Of
course it is no excuse to say that I would not have spoken as I did had I
known you were there.’
‘I did not mean to listen,’ said Kate, colouring a little. ‘You might have
seen me all the time; but it is best to say nothing at all now—none of us had
better speak. We have to get through dinner, which is a pity. But after that,
let us think it over quietly—quite quietly—and in the morning we shall see
better. There is no reason,’ she said, very softly, ‘why, because you do not
feel for me as I thought you did, we should quarrel; for really there is
nothing to quarrel about. One’s love is not in one’s own gift, to be bestowed
as one pleases. You have been very kind to me—very kind.’
‘Oh! Kate—oh! my dear child, do you think I don’t love you? Oh! Kate,
do not break my heart!’
‘Don’t, aunt, please,’ she said, with a shiver. ‘I don’t feel quite well, and
it hurts me. Don’t—any more—now!’

CHAPTER LVII.
That was the horrible sting of it—they had made believe to love her, and it
had not been true. Now love, Kate reflected (as she went slowly to her
room, feeling, somehow, as if every step was a mile), was not like anything
else. To counterfeit any other emotion might be pardoned, but to counterfeit
love was the last injury anyone could do you. Perhaps it was the wound to
her pride which helped the wound to her affections, and made it so bitter. As
she thought it all over, she reflected that she had, no doubt, accepted this
love much too easily when she went first to her aunt’s charge. She had leapt
into their arms, as it were. She had left them no room to understand what
their real feelings were; she had taken it for granted that they loved her. She
writhed under the humiliation which this recollection brought her. After all
it was not, perhaps, they who were in the wrong, but she who had insisted
on believing what they had never taken much pains to persuade her of.
After all, when she came to think of it, Ombra had made no pretence
whatever. The very first time they met, Ombra had repulsed her—she was
honest, at least!
To be sure, Mrs. Anderson had been very caressing, but that was her
nature. She said dear and darling to every child that came in her way—she
petted everybody. Why, then, should Kate have accepted her petting as any
sign of special love? It was herself that had been a vain fool, all along. She
had taken it for granted: she had assumed it as necessary and certain that
they loved her; and they, embarrassed by this faith, had been reluctant to
hurt her feelings by undeceiving her; this was how it was. What stings, what
tortures of pride and pain, did she give herself as she thought these things
over! Gradually she pulled down all the pleasant house that had sheltered
her these four—nearly five long years. She plucked it down with her hands.
She laid her weary head on her little sofa beside the fire in her room, and
watched the flickering shadows, and said to herself that here she was, back
in the only home that belonged to her, alone as she had been when she left
it. Four cold walls, with so much furniture, new unknown servants, who
could not love her—who did not even know her; a cold, cold miserable
world outside, and no one in it to whom it would make the difference of a
meal or a night’s rest, whether she lived or died. Oh, cold, terrible

remorseless fate! back again in Langton-Courtenay, which, perhaps, she
ought never to have left, exactly in the same position as when she left it.
Kate could not find any solace in tears; they would not come. All her youth
of heart, her easy emotions, her childish laughing and crying, were gone.
The sunshine of happiness that had lighted up all the world with dazzling
lights had been suddenly quenched. She saw everything as it was, natural
and true. It was like the sudden enlightenment which came to the dreamer
in fairy-land; shrivelled up all the beautiful faces, turning the gold into
dross, and the sweetness into corruption.
How far these feelings were exaggerated and overdone, the reader can
judge. The spectator, indeed, always sees how much too far the bent bow
rebounds when the string is cut, and how far the sufferer goes astray in
disappointment and grief, as well as in the extravagances of hope. But,
unfortunately, the one who has to go through it never gets the benefit of that
tranquilising knowledge. And to Kate all that she saw now seemed too real
—more real than anything she had known before—and her desertion
complete. She lay on her sofa, and gazed into the fire, and felt her temples
beating and her eyes blazing, but could not cry to relieve herself. When
Maryanne came upstairs to light her mistress’s candles, and prepare her
dress for dinner, she shrieked out to see the flushed face on the sofa-pillow.
‘I have a headache—that is all. Don’t make a fuss,’ cried poor Kate.
‘Miss Kate, you must be going to have a fever. Let me call Mrs.
Anderson—let me send for the doctor,’ cried the girl, in dismay. But Kate
exerted her authority, and silenced her. She sent her downstairs with
messages that she had a headache, and could not come down again, but was
going to bed, and would rather not be disturbed.’
Late in the evening, when Mrs. Anderson came to the door, Maryanne
repeated the message. ‘I think, ma’am, Miss Kate’s asleep. She said she was
not to be disturbed.’
But Maryanne did not know how to keep this visitor out. She dared not
oppose her, as she stole in on noiseless foot, and went to the bedside. Kate
was lying with all her pretty hair in a mass on the pillow, with her eyes
closed, and the flush which had frightened Maryanne still on her face. Was
she asleep? Mrs. Anderson would have thought so, but for seeing two big
teardrops just stealing from her closed eyelashes. She stooped over and
kissed her softly on the forehead. ‘God bless you, my dear child, my dear

child!’ she whispered, almost wishing she might not be heard; and then
stole away to her own room, to the other child, much more tumultuous and
exciting, who awaited her. Poor Mrs. Anderson! of all the three she was the
one who had the most to bear.
Ombra was pacing up and down the large bed-room, so luxurious and
wealthy, her breath coming quick with excitement, her whole frame full of
pulses and tinglings of a hundred pains. She, too, had gone through a sharp
pang of humiliation; but it had passed over. She was not lonely, like Kate.
She had her mother to fall back upon in the meantime; and even failing her
mother, she had some one else, another who would support her, upon whom
she could lean, and who would give her moral sacking and sympathy. All
this makes a wonderful difference in the way people receive a downfall.
Ombra had been thunderstruck at first at her own recklessness, and the
wounds she had given; but now a certain irritation possessed her, inflaming
all the sore places in her mind, and they were not few. She was walking up
and down, thinking what she would do, what she would say, how she would
no longer be held in subjection, and forced to consider Kate’s ways and
Kate’s feelings, Kate this and that. She was sorry she had said what she did
—that she could avow without hesitation. She had not meant to hurt her
cousin, and of course she had not meant really that she hated her, but only
that she was irritated and unhappy, and not in a position to choose her
words. Kate was rich, and could have whatever she pleased; but Ombra had
nothing but the people who loved her, and she could not bear any
interference with them. It was the parable of the ewe-lamb over again, she
said to herself; and thus was exciting herself, and swelling her excitement to
a higher and higher pitch, when her mother went in—her mother, for whom
all this tempest was preparing and upon whom it was about to fall.
‘You have been to see her, mamma! You never think of your own
dignity! You have been petting her, and apologising to her!’
‘She is asleep,’ said Mrs. Anderson, sitting down, and leaning her head
on her hand. She did not feel able for any more contention. Kate, she felt
sure, was not really asleep, but she accepted the semblance, that no more
might be said.
Ombra laughed, and, though the laugh sounded mocking, there was a
great deal of secret relief in it.

‘Oh! she is asleep! Did not I say she was no more than a child? She has
got over it already. When she wakes up she will have forgotten all about it.
How excellent those easy-going natures are! I knew it was only for the
moment. I knew she had no feelings to speak of. For once, mama, you must
acknowledge yourself in the wrong!’
And Ombra sat down too, with an immense weight lifted from her mind.
She had not owned it even to herself, but the relief was so great that she felt
now what her anxiety had been. ‘Little foolish thing,’ she said, ‘to be so
heroical, and make such a noise—’ Ombra laughed almost hysterically
—‘and then to go to bed and fall asleep, like a baby! She is little more than
a baby—I always told you so, mamma.’
‘You have always been wrong, Ombra, in your estimation of Kate, and
you are wrong now. Whether she was asleep or not, I can’t say; she looked
like it. But this is a very serious matter all the same. It will not be so easily
got over as you think.’
‘I don’t wish it to be got over!’ cried Ombra. ‘It is a kind of life I cannot
endure, and it ought not to be asked of me—it is too much to ask of me.
You saw the letter. He is to be sent here, with the object of paying his
addresses to her, because she is an heiress, and it is thought he ought to
marry money. To marry—her! Oh! mamma! he ought not to have said it to
me. It was wicked and cruel to make such an explanation.’
‘I think so too,’ said Mrs. Anderson, under her breath.
‘And he does not seem to be horrified by the thought. He says we shall
be able to meet—— Oh! mother, before this happens let us go away
somewhere, and hide ourselves at the end of the earth!’
‘Ombra, my poor child, you must not hide yourself. There are your
rights to be considered. It is not that I don’t see how hard it is; but you must
not be the one to judge him harshly. We must make allowances. He was
alone—he was not under good influence, when he wrote.’
‘Oh! mother, and am I to believe of him that bad influences affect him
so? This is making it worse—a thousand times worse! I thought I had
foreseen everything that there could be to bear; but I never thought of this.’
‘Alas! poor child, how little did you foresee!’ said Mrs. Anderson, in a
low voice—‘not half nor quarter part. Ombra, let us take Kate’s advice. La
nuit porte conseil—let us decide nothing to-night.’

‘You can go and sleep, like her,’ said Ombra, somewhat bitterly. ‘I think
she is more like you than I am. You will say your prayers, and compose
yourself, and go to sleep.’
Mrs. Anderson smiled faintly. ‘Yes, I could have done that when I was as
young as you,’ she said, and made no other answer. She was sick at heart,
and weary of the discussion. She had gone over the same ground so often,
and how often soever she might go over it, the effect was still the same. For
what could anyone make of such a hopeless, dreary business?
After all, it was Ombra, with all her passion, who was asleep the first.
Her sighs seemed to steal through the room like ghosts, and sometimes a
deeper one than usual would cause her mother to steal through the open
doorway to see if her child was ill. But after a time the sighs died away, and
Mrs. Anderson lay in the darkness of the long Winter night, watching the
expiring fire, which burned lower and lower, and listening to the wind
outside, and asking herself what was to be the next chapter—where she was
to go and what to do. She blamed herself bitterly for all that had happened,
and went over it step by step and asked herself how it could have been
helped. Of itself, had it been done in the light of day, and with consent of all
parties, there had been no harm. She had her child’s happiness to consider
chiefly, and not the prejudices of a family with whom she had no
acquaintance. How easy it is to justify anything that is done and cannot be
undone! and how easy and natural the steps seem by which it was brought
about! while all the time something keeps pricking the casuist, whispering,
‘I told you so.’ Yes, she had not been without her warnings; she had known
that she ought not to have given that consent which had been wrung from
her, as it were, at the sword’s point. She had known that it was weak of her
to let principle and honour go, lest Ombra’s cheek should be pale, and her
face averted from her mother.
‘It was not Ombra’s fault,’ she said to herself. ‘It was natural that Ombra
should do anything she did; but I who am older, who know the world, I
should have known better—I should have had the courage to bear even her
unhappiness, for her good. Oh, my poor child! and she does not know yet,
bad as she thinks it, half of what she may have to bear.’
Thus the mother lay and accused herself, taking first one, and then the
other, upon her shoulders, shedding salt tears under the veil of that
darkness, wondering where she should next wander to, and what would

become of them, and whether light could ever come out of this darkness.
How her heart ached!—what fears and heaviness overwhelmed her! while
Ombra slept and dreamed, and was happy in the midst of the wretchedness
which she had brought upon herself!

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