III
Yet often, when she had spent a part of the day or evening away from home, she had a curious expectation of returning to find her house not empty and silent, but with something alive in it to greet her. She did not think of the people who had been her own in the different days so far past, nor of her living friends, nor of the young presences whose laughter Lucy had insisted upon hearing. It seemed to her simply that there was more life and motion and personality in her waiting house, than just Diogenes crouching on the front porch, and the kettle steaming to itself on the back of the stove.
One winter evening she walked late down the village street. The moon rode high and white. Every frosty breath shone, every step creaked and crackled in the snow. Through the thin leafless maple-trunks and lilac-boughs she could see her house plainly: the snowy roof, glittering to the moon, the low eaves, ragged with silver icicles, and the four yellow windows of the hall and sitting-room, which she had lighted against her late return.
She had a definite sense of expectancy. She was going back to something, to somebody—and found herself hurrying almost joyfully. But with her hand on the gate, she stopped, and stared at the house as if it were strange to her. An icy little stream flowed suddenly round her heart. For a second, all the world—the moon, the village, the house, and her own inner secret universe—staggered and reeled and shook. But as suddenly, everything grew calm and still again. The frightful chill melted from her blood; the moon watched her with the same high virgin regard, and the yellow windows beckoned her home.
She went slowly up the path and into the warm silent hall.
In that moment at the gate, she had realized that it was only Herself to whom she was going back. Herself, who made those windows bright, who piled the logs on the hearth that now she could light and sit by, dreaming. It was Herself, would be running down the stairs to greet her, and fetching an apple from the pantry, and listening to her story of the evening's doings.
It seemed to her almost as if she had become two individuals. One of her went out into the village and the world. The other stayed always in the little white house. She would always be waiting to greet her home.
That was all. Now that she understood it, it did not concern her any more.
She was becoming a good hermit, she commented; but noticed, with the detachment that had grown upon her, that she was not going to remember that shuddering moment at the gate. She blew the fire high, thinking, 'After all, there is nobody but Myself who understands me much,' and was amused at her simple egotism.