I extinguished my candle by dropping my shawl upon it, and groped in vain for matches over the tops of table and shelf.
"To bed in the dark, then," I said, pulling off my gloves and the band, from my head, for I felt a tightness in it, and pulled out the hairpins. But a desire to look in the glass overcame me. I felt unacquainted with myself, and must see what my aspect indicated just then.
I crept downstairs, to the dining-room, passed my hands over the sideboard, the mantel shelf, and took the round of the dinner-table, but found nothing to light my candle with.
"The fire may not be out in the parlor," I thought; "it can be lighted there." I ran against the hatstand in the hall, knocking a cane down, which fell with a loud noise. The parlor door was ajar; the fire was not out, and Desmond was before it, watching its decay.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The candle," I stammered, confused with the necessity of staying to have it lighted, and the propriety of retreating in the dark.
"Shall I light it?"
I stepped a little further inside the door and gave it to him. He grew warm with thrusting it between the bars of the grate, and I grew chilly. Shivering, and with chattering teeth, I made out to say, "A piece of paper would do it." Raising his head hastily, it came crash against the edge of the marble shelf. Involuntarily I shut the door, and leaned against it, to wait for the effect of the blow; but feeling a pressure against the outside, I yielded to it, and moved aside. Mrs. Somers entered, with a candle flaring in one hand, and holding with the other her dressing-gown across her bosom.
"What are you doing here?" she asked harshly, but in a whisper, her eyes blazing like a panther's.
"Doing?" I replied; "stay and see."