She threw her shawl over her head, and hurried out.
"Come again," the childish voice called after her.
Grandsir had begun to eat his nuts. He scarcely knew she had been there.
Hetty went swiftly homeward through the dusk. The damp air was clogging to the breath, and for a moment her warm kitchen seemed a refuge to her. But only for a moment. It was very still.
"I'll give it up," she said. "There's flowers in the world, an' not one for me. I might 'a' had 'em if He'd took the trouble to send. That proves it. There ain't anybody to send,—nor care."
She walked about in a grim scorn of everything: the world, the way it was made, and herself for trusting it. When she had made a cup of tea and broken bread, the warmth came back to her chilled heart, and suddenly her scorn turned against herself.
"I said I'd wait till twelve o'clock to-night," she owned. "I'm the one that's petered out. This is the last word I speak till arter twelve."
She fortified herself with stronger tea, and sat grimly down to knit. The minutes and the half-hours passed. She rose, from time to time, and fed the fire, and once, at eleven, when a cold rain began, she put her face to the pane.
"Dark as pitch!" she muttered. "If anybody's comin', they couldn't see their way."
Then she lighted another lamp and set it in the window. It was a quarter before twelve when her trembling hands failed her, and she laid down her knitting and walked to the front door. The northeast wind whipped her in the face, and she could hear the surf at Breakers' Edge. The pathway of light from the window lay upon a figure by the gate. A voice came out of the stillness. It was young and frank.