Read "The Star Dreamer" by Egerton Castle online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Such is the fond illusion of my heart, Such pictures would I at that time have made; And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. So once it would have been-'tis so no more: I have submitted to a new control, A power is gone which nothing can restore. -WORDSWORTH (_Elegiacs_).
Sir David sat down upon the parapet, shifted the lantern and began to read. Ellinor watched him, the tumultuous beating of her heart gradually sinking down to a dull languor. Master Simon was pacing the platform, now conning over some chemical formula to himself, now pausing to gaze upon the stars with a good humoured sneer upon the futility of astronomy in general and the absurdity of Sir David's in particular. A bat came and flapped with noiseless wings round the lantern and was lost again in the darkness of the surrounding deeps. It seemed to Ellinor a heavy space of time, and still David sat with a contracted brow, motionless, staring at the open sheet in his hand. At length he raised his head. His eyes sought, not herself, but the comrade of his long years of solitude.