Later in the evening, when Tim and Yetta had been long in bed, Rosamund and Eleanor were in the sitting-room before the fire, the table with its yellow-shaded lamp drawn up between them. Since the night of Rosamund's fright the shades were kept drawn at night; now the room, in its seclusion, was warm and cosy with the sense of home. Eleanor smiled over a garment of Timmy's that she was mending; she stopped, from time to time, to look into the fire, laying the work in her lap as if it were a task over which she loved to linger.
Rosamund sat back in her big chair, her eyes partly closed, deep in thought. The day had been full of crowding emotions. She mentally recalled first one and then another, trying to marshal them into some sequence of cause and event.
On the last moments between herself and John Ogilvie she dwelt least; even in memory they were too palpitating. It is only after surrender, or after loss, that a woman loves to dwell upon such moments; before, they hold too much of fear, not to call forth the feminine withdrawal of the unwon. His looks she dared recall; his pale intensity, the flame in his eyes, the fear and anger there as she described the wicked face at the window, his look before he left her, when Pendleton's step was already on the veranda.
That brought her thoughts to Pendleton, to his insinuations and the slight leer in his look. She shuddered all the more because she knew that, a few months before, she would have parried his impertinence with a laugh, instead of with the scorn and anger she had not been able to hide to-day. She was at least that far from the old life, the old state of mind! She knew now how intolerable she would find the people who had seemed only commonplace before! Looking back, secure in her new life in this purer air, she could say to herself how much she hated their suspicions of everyone, their petty gossip, their searching for hidden, unworthy motives in every least action, their expecting the base to emerge from every innocence, their smiling, flattering faces.
She was glad, she told herself, so glad to be away from all that—all the more glad because she could remember the time when it had not especially displeased her. Yet in fairness she reminded herself that Flood was different. He had been very nice, indeed, to-day—and he had liked Eleanor. It spoke well for him that Eleanor, too, liked him! She looked across at Eleanor's tenderly brooding face, and smiled; how suitable it would be, she thought, if Flood and Eleanor—that would relieve herself of Flood's intentions. It was the first time she had been willing to admit that she knew what they were—and intentions on Flood's part would be quite delightful if Eleanor were their object——
So her thoughts passed, from one thing to another, until, suddenly, as if a shot had broken her dream, her heart stood still with fear, then seemed to leap into her throat.
She and Eleanor were on their feet in an instant, hands grasping hands, startled eyes searching each other's and then turning toward the door. This time it was no stealthy presence which had crept upon the house to peer in at the window. Even while they held each other, there in their safety before the fire, something stumbled across the piazza, fell against the door, cried out, seemed to fall farther, as if at the limit of strength—and was still.
Even the negroes in the kitchen heard the noise, and came running in with scared faces.
Rosamund moved quickly and quietly to the door, silently slid back the bolt, and flung it open.
There was no lurking enemy to surprise. Instead, a huddled form lay, as if crushed, before the doorsill. Between them they managed to lift it and bear it upstairs. All the way up Eleanor, though trembling and very white, carried her full share of the burden, and kept saying over and over to Rosamund: