Johanna, listening outside the door, concluded from the stillness that her sister was asleep. But Ephie heard Johanna come and go. She could not sleep, nor could she get Maurice's words out of her mind. He had something important to say to her. What could it be? There was only one important subject in the world for her now; and she longed for the hour of his visit—longed, hoped, and was more than half afraid.
III.
Since her return to Leipzig, Ephie's spirits had gone up and down like a barometer in spring. In this short time, she passed through more changes of mood than in all her previous life. She learned what uncertainty meant, and suspense, and helplessness; she caught at any straw of hope, and, for a day on end, would be almost comforted; she invented numberless excuses for Schilsky, and rejected them, one and all. For she was quite in the dark about his movements; she had not seen him since her return, and could hear nothing of him. Only the first of the letters she had written to him from Switzerland had elicited a reply, and he had left all the notes she had sent him, since getting back, unanswered.
Her fellow-boarder, Mrs. Tully, was her only confidant; and that, only in so far as this lady, knowing that what she called "a little romance" was going on, had undertaken to enclose any letters that might arrive during Ephie's absence. Johanna had no suspicions, or rather she had hitherto had none. In the course of the past week, however, it had become plain even to her blind, sisterly eyes that something was the matter with Ephie. She could still be lively when she liked, almost unnaturally lively, and especially in the company of Mrs. Tully and her circle; but with these high spirits alternated fits of depression, and once Johanna had come upon her in tears. Driven into a corner, Ephie declared that Herr Becker had scolded her at her lesson; but Johanna was not satisfied with this explanation; for formerly, the master's blame or praise had left no impression on her little sister's mind. Even worse than this, Ephie could now, on slight provocation, be thoroughly peevish—a thing so new in her that it worried Johanna most of all. The long walks of the summer had been given up; but Ephie had adopted a way of going in and out of the house, just as it pleased her, without a word to her sister. Johanna scrutinised her keenly, and the result was so disturbing that she resolved to broach the subject to her mother.
On the morning after Maurice's visit, therefore, she appeared in the sitting-room, with a heap of undarned stockings in one hand, her work-basket in the other, and with a very determined expression on her face. But the moment was not a happy one: Mrs. Cayhill was deep in WHY PAUL FERROL KILLED HIS WIFE; and would be lost to her surroundings until the end of the book was reached. Had Johanna been of an observant turn of mind, she would have waited a little; for, finding the intermediate portion of the novel dry reading, Mrs. Cayhill was getting over the pages at the rate of three or four a minute, and would soon have been finished.
But Johanna sat down at the table and opened fire.
"I wish to speak to you, mother," she said firmly.
Mrs. Cayhill did not even blink. Johanna drew several threads across a hole she was darning, before she repeated, in the same decided tone: "Do you hear me, mother? There is something I wish to speak to you about."
"Hm," said Mrs. Cayhill, without raising her eyes from the page. She heard Johanna, and was even vaguely distracted by her from the web of circumstance that was enveloping her hero; but she believed, from experience, that if she took no notice of her, Johanna would not persist. What the latter had to say would only be a reminder that it was mail-day, and no letters were ready; or that if she did not put on her bonnet and go out for a walk, she would be obliged to take another of her nerve-powders that night: and Mrs. Cayhill hated moral persuasion with all her heart.