"True," she says, and no more. Five minutes afterward they reach Brooklyn.
The door stands wide open. All the world could have entered unrebuked into that silent hall. What need now for bars and bolts? When the Great Thief has entered in and stolen from them their best, what heart have they to guard against lesser thefts?
Luttrell follows Molly into the house, his face no whit less white than her own. A great pain is tugging at him,—a pain that is almost an agony. For what greater suffering is there than to watch with unavailing sympathy the anguish of those we love?
He touches her lightly on the arm to rouse her, for she has stood stock-still in the very middle of the hall,—whether through awful fear, or grief, or sudden bitter memory, her heart knoweth.
"Molly," says her lover, "let me go with you."
"You still here?" she says, awaking from her thoughts, with a shiver. "I thought you gone. Why do you stay? I only ask to be alone."
"I shall go in a few minutes," he pleads, "when I have seen you safe with Mrs. Massereene. I am afraid for you. Suppose you should—suppose—you do not even know—the room," he winds up, desperately. "Let me guard you against such an awful surprise as that."
"I do," she answers, pointing, with a shudder, to one room farther on that branches off the hall. "It—is there. Leave me; I shall be better by myself."
"I shall see you to-morrow?" he says, diffidently.
"No; I shall see no one to-morrow."