For a second or so there was silence in the room, Pam gazing over her candle at the drawn white face—whiter and more drawn than usual, it seemed to her—with the guilty thought beating within her that once again she had brought herself before this man unwelcomely. Then, seeing that she was the intruder, and that he, risen to full height from the chair, showed no signs of addressing her, or even of actively ignoring her, but stood passive, as though she had summoned his attention and he was simply giving it, without prejudice to any explanation she might wish to make—begged his pardon (for Heaven knows what) in a voice of infinite apology and contrition.
"I hope I have n't disturbed you..." she said. He bit his lip over a strained short "No."
"I did n't mean to. I only came in for some worsted ... Emma used it last. A grey ball with three needles in it, the color of uncle's stockings. May I look for it? ... It 's by the Bible, I think."
Without a word he turned on his heel to the sideboard where the big everyday reading Bible lay, and commenced a silent search. Something about the desolate droop of his thin, threadbare shoulders and the weary aimlessness of his seeking, sent (as his rear prospect always seemed to send) a thrill of spontaneous pity through Pam's heart. Why she pitied him, or exactly what there was about the shiny obverse of him to stimulate the emotion, not for the life of her could she have told.
He was some considerable time with his coat-tails turned towards her, and seemed, by the laborious stooping of his shoulder, quagmired in his search, she suggested—with such gentleness of breathing as would not have rocked the flame of her candle—that perhaps ... if he would let her ... she might be able....
Immediately he spun round from the side cupboard as though she had struck him, with the needles flashing in his hand.
"Is this your worsted?" he said.
"Oh ... thank you so much!"
Her eyes corroborated the color in an instant, and she started forward with grateful extended hand to relieve him of the necessity for coming more than halfway across the kitchen to meet her.
He took the words, but his eyes refused to admit the look. "No thoroughfare" seemed eternally writ up over them. Pam gazed a second at the stern intimation, and then, cuddling her candle to her for departure, turned—softly, so that he might not construe one single grain of anger into her going—for the door. Halfway there she looked back irresolutely over a shoulder, hesitating whether to speak or not.