He looked down at her gravely. He knew that she was willfully attempting to charm him—and how he did scorn anything of that sort! And yet— He looked at her as some long forgotten Ross of Salem might have looked at a bonny young witch. The creature was dangerous, and yet— Bonny she was, and a young man is a young man.
“I don’t see,” he began, doubtfully, when suddenly she cried: “Look!” and pointed to the window. He turned, startled, but he saw nothing there.
“It’s getting light!” she cried.
That was true enough. The sky was not black now, but all gray, pallid, swept clean of clouds. The rain had ceased, but the mighty wind still blew, and the tops of the trees bowed and bent before it, like inky marionettes before a pale curtain. There was no sign yet of the sun, but you could feel that the dawn was coming.
“What of it?” asked Ross, briefly.
“It’s the last day!” she answered.
What a thing to say! The last day. It filled him with a vague sense of dread, and it made him angry.
“That’s not—” he began, but she did not heed him.
“Listen!” she said. “You must help me! I don’t know what to do. I’m—I’m desperate! I’ve—” She stopped, looking up into his wooden face; then, seizing him by the shoulder, she tried to shake him.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, look at me like a human being!” she cried.