Through the muffled stillness of the house the sound of the opening front door stole up to her, and she heard George come in and stop for a minute to take off his hat and coat in the lower hail. Then she heard his footsteps move to the staircase; and while she listened she had a curious intuitive sense that it was not George at all, but a stranger who was coming to her, and that this stranger walked like a very old man. She heard him reach the bend in the stairs, and without stopping to put out the light, pass on to her door, which was the first on the landing. As he reached the top of the stairs, he stumbled once; then she heard his hand on the knob and a fumbling sound as if the knob would not turn. The door seemed to take an eternity to open, and while she sprang up with the clutch of terror at her heart, she felt again the sharp, agonizing premonition that a stranger was approaching her.
"George!" she called in a strangled voice, and waited, standing, for him to enter.
CHAPTER VII
MOTHERHOOD
At noon the next day Mrs. Fowler came into Gabriella's room and found her sewing beside the window which looked on a gray expanse of sky and street, where a few snowflakes were falling.
"Did you tell him, dear?" she asked, arranging a handful of red roses in a little alabaster vase on the desk.
No, Gabriella had not told him. She felt now that she should never be able to tell him, but all she said was:
"I didn't get a chance. How lovely those roses are."
Mrs. Fowler set the vase where the gray light fell on it, and then turning with empty hands from the desk, asked gently: