"Ay, to wash 'ersen, ah' s'd think," Miss Morland reflected shrewdly to herself. "Ah 'd gie seummut to know what lass 's after."
At that moment, if it could have been revealed to her, the lass was after listening at the top of the staircase with a twisted ear to their solicitudes concerning her whereabouts. Once upon a time, she told herself while she did it, she would never have listened to anything that anybody said, whether she had been the subject of it or not. But now, listening seemed part of her natural defence; she listened with no interest in the thing heard, except only as a means for her own intelligence and safety. At the first sound of words her suspicious ear was up like a cat's at the chattering of birds.
From her place at the head of the twisted stairs she was driven into her bedroom once more by Mrs. Morland. Then, when calm had been restored to the recently ruffled atmosphere of the post house, and it was possible to probe by ear to the uttermost corners of it, she slipped out a cautious head, chose her moment, and stole down by the Sunday staircase. Very gently she pressed upon the parlor door with her cushioned fingers ... very gently ... gently, gently, just so that she ... gently ... gently ... could catch a glimpse.
Ah!
The treacherous door had cracked, all at once, like a walnut-shell under her boot-heel. She was halfway up the stairs again in a trice; holding her palpitating heart and listening terribly over the bannisters for the sounds that should proclaim discovery of her attempt. But none came. Baffled, goaded with desire, half-crying with fear of her enterprise's failure, and yet unable to cry because she lacked the tears to cry with, being only able to pull painful faces; desperate to achieve her purpose and terrified with her own desperation, she was up and down the staircase after this a dozen times; back into her bedroom, listening at the head of the corkscrew stairs; holding her ear to every point of the compass. But never dared she essay entrance of the parlor. That door, just ajar on its hinges, held her more effectually at bay than had it been bolted with great bolts and locked and barred. Dusky night descended, the time was getting ripe for her purpose ... and still she lacked the letter.
Then the greater terror out-terrorised the lesser. Fear of what the consequences might be should she not achieve her purpose to-night drove her downstairs for the last time, and into the parlor. With an air of reckless innocence that pretends it has nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, she pulled the door wide and strode into the room. In the simulation of guiltlessness her bearing for the moment was almost defiant, as though she were braced for going into some hated presence. And indeed, for all the assuring silence of the parlor, she advanced with the full expectation of seeing the schoolmaster's figure looming forth from the table, with his hands to his ears and his back to her, as he had been on her first arrival. But no black shadow interposed itself between her and the window; the chair was empty; the room was void. Gone all this while.... And she in her terror had been letting the precious moments slip through her fingers like water. Her heart, in spite of the misery of her lost opportunities, gave a great bound of exultation when it found the way of its purpose clear.
She sprang across the room and laid hold of the desk. The pleasure of feeling it in her possession again after all her dividing anguish; this union of purpose with opportunity; this path unto righteousness—were more glorious than untold riches. Tremulously she deposed the china shepherdess, and opening the desk thrust in her feverish fingers.
And then, all of a sudden, her heart seemed to stand still. A great sinking, swaying sickness seized her.
The letter was not there.
CHAPTER XXVIII