She pressed them against her face.
After a time she fell down on her knees. She pressed them against her face. She did not say anything. She could scarcely think anything. She just knelt there until something gently drew her head around. She dropped the stockings. She put her right hand on the window-ledge to steady herself and looked backward.
No sound save the breathing of the children and her own stifled sobs had broken the silence; the door was shut, but a man was there, a man of strange vesture seen dimly in the moon's radiance, yet there was a kind of light about his face. She could see his features. They were those of a man in middle years. They were lined with care. He had seen life on its seamy side. The woman felt that he had known poverty and loneliness. She stared up at him.
"I didn't believe," she whispered; "it cannot be. I thought we were forgotten."
The man slowly raised his hand. The moonlight struck fair upon it. She saw that it was calloused, the hand of a man who toiled. It was extended over her head. There was no bodily touch, but her head bent low down until she rested it upon her hands upon the floor. When she looked up, the room was empty. There was no sound save the breathing of the children and the throb of her own heart which beat wildly in the fearful hollow of her ear.
She heard a sound of strange footsteps outside the door. There was a crackle as of paper, the soft sound of things laid upon the floor, a gentle rapping on the panels, a light laugh, a rustle of draperies, footsteps moving away. As in a dream she got to her feet, she knew not how. She opened the door.
The hall was dimly illuminated. Her feet struck a little heap of joy-bringing parcels. She leaned back against the door-jamb, her hand to her heart, trembling. What could it mean?
A tiny voice broke the silence. It was the littlest girl turning over in her sleep, murmuring incoherently and then clearly:
"If you only believe, that's enough; if you only believe."