Barbara sat listening and tending her child. Her heart felt like breaking. For a moment she thought of going, not to Högden, but in another way, home with him at once.
It was a temptation.
That night she broke into sobs so ungovernable, that, in order not to disturb the household in their slumbers, she went out into the soft, drizzling rain: it quieted and cooled her.
As she was standing the next morning, helping a neighbour's wife to rinse and wring the clothes by the brook, a pony-carriage stopped in the road. The coachman—he had gold lace on his hat and coat—got down and went in to the tinsmith's.
"You must wring that sheet right out, Barbara," said the neighbour's wife; "it'll be the last you'll wring here, for that's the Consul's carriage."
And Barbara wrung the sheet until there was not a drop of water in it. It had come now!
She went in and dressed the child; she hardly knew what she was doing, and hardly felt it under her hands.
She saw the man give six dollars to the tinsmith's wife. He was so stiff and tall and distinguished-looking, with such a big, aristocratic nose, and he made a kind of bend every time she happened to look at him, and assured her that there was no hurry—not the least! They never woke before nine at the Consul's, so there was still plenty of time. And then he looked at his watch.
And every time he looked at his watch, she looked at her boy: there were now orders and a time fixed for her to leave him.
He had fallen asleep again. If he were to wake, she did not know what would happen—she was sure she could not leave him then.