midnight
Good-night , and thank you . '' Could this really be herself , Georgiana Warne , she wondered , as she made her escape and walked rapidly away down the road under the high arches of the elms . How had it come about ? Why was she here , she who had expected to be out on the first reaches of the great deep when midnight came this night ? As she passed silent house after silent house , familiar and yet somehow strangely unfamiliar in the light of what might have been , it was hard enough to realize that she had had this wonderful chance to stay away for two happy months from the sober little old place , and had herself relinquished it . Before she knew it she was nearing her home , the old white house standing square and stern in the moonlight -- she had been seeing it all the way in the train . She loved it dearly , no doubt of that , but it had been no attack of homesickness which had brought her back to it .