At length sounds from without broke the stillness—the tramp of horses, the loud, reckless conversation of coarse men. The watcher in that room only cowered lower into her seat, as if those tones had deprived her of the last gleam of strength which had been her support during the previous hours.
There were voices from the room beneath—drinking songs chanted with such energy that the words were distinctly audible where she sat—the ring of glasses, rude toasts and the tumult in which heedless, hardened men are wont to indulge in the midst of a bacchanalian revel.
Very soon there was a step upon the stairs, which made the woman spring to her feet and throw aside the mantle in which she had been shrouding her face. The door was pushed open and a man entered carrying a candle, which flared uncertainly in the draught from the passage. He did not at first perceive her, and called angrily:
"Sybil! Sybil! where the deuce are you, I say?"
"I am here," she replied, with a coldness and composure of which she had appeared incapable a moment before. "What do you want of me?"
"What is a man likely to want when he comes home tired and hungry, I should like to know?"
"The women are getting supper; it will be ready very soon."
"And what are you doing up here in the dark?"
"This is the room where I usually sit, and it certainly is not dark," she replied, quietly as before, although her hands trembled nervously, and the expression of her eyes betrayed something akin to absolute fear.