As no response came, the protective maternal instinct took greater alarm, and she crossed to the door of his room and she repeated her one question:
“Did you forget anything?”
Her mind refused to release itself from the iteration of that idea: it was some thing—not herself—that he wanted.
He knocked.
Her imagination, long oppressed by his silence, now made of his knock some signal of distress. It took on the authority of an appeal not to be denied. She unlocked the door and opened it a little way, and once more she asked her one poor question.
His answer to it came in the form of a gentle pressure against the door, breaking down her resistance. As she applied more strength, this was as gently overcome; and when the opening was sufficient, he walked past her into the room.
How hushed the house! How still the world outside as the cloud wove in darkness its mantle of light!