Sept Crocus

It was a sweet face, and was well set off by the sky-blue of the farthingale, which, with her white lace coif and white ruff, gave her something the air of a speedwell flower, more especially as her expression seemed to have caught much of Cecily's air of self-restrained contentment. 

She began humming to an almost inaudible accompaniment on the piano :

Soft are the hands of Love,

soft, soft are his feet

They stand apart, so cold and hard amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around them.

I can hear my steps

and the clink of coins in one pocket

and the distant hush of the sea.

There was the possibility that the murderer had done this, and had afterwards escaped by the window.

And aloof and dark the mountains stared unconcernedly seawards.