"Here I am," was the hoarse answer; "come in."
"I was so afraid to be alone with Grant," continued Elsie; "I felt as if I should scream every moment."
"What did he say to you; what did my husband talk about?"
"Oh, nothing in particular; he said very little; he did not even ask where you were. I told him you had gone to bed with a headache, but he did not seem to hear. He sat and looked in the fire, as if he were reading something in the red hot coals; after a long time he asked me if I loved him, and kissed my forehead. That was all."
Elizabeth struck her hands hard together, choked back the groan which rose to her lips, and sat gazing into the fire, as if she too read something terrible in the scarlet caverns which were breaking up and forming in its midst.
"I'm so cold," shivered Elsie; "there isn't half enough coal in the grate."
Cold! The chill had crept into Elizabeth's very soul which no power of hers could warm, and close to her that weak creature crouched, moaning out her petty complaints!
Even then, up to the last, while the glittering hands of the clock were seen in the firelight, creeping swiftly over the dial, and its solemn tick measured off the awful minute on which Elizabeth had agreed with her own soul to go forth on her terrible errand, the wretched woman was compelled to pause in that dim chamber, worse than dead herself, to comfort and soothe the creature who lay like a wounded fawn on the hearth.
"What time is it, Bessie?"
She raised herself and looked at the clock.