Vaguely she heard the sound of Nora’s departure, as the door was closed behind her, and still she sat there wordless, motionless, almost breathless as it appeared, for her bosom scarcely seemed to move.
Presently there came two tears from under the closed lids; then quickly others followed them. The sense that she was freed even from the danger of Nora’s observation weakened her more and more. Then with the helpless, whispering tones of an unhappy child, she said:
“My God, how desolate I am! How can I bear it? How long must it endure?”
Still she did not move except to raise her lids and cast upward her tear-drenched eyes, while she caught her lower lip between her teeth.
Suddenly there was a step upon the piazza—a man’s step, as if in haste. She started and sat upright. Who could it be? No man except the rector ever visited her, and this was not the rector’s step. She hastily brushed away the traces of her tears and sat listening.
Then came a tap at the door—not loud, but firm, distinct, decided. It sounded strange to her, unlike the tap of any messenger or servant who had ever come to her house.
She got up, leaving the door of the sitting-room open that the light might enter the dark hall.
Then, most unaccountably, a sense of fear, very unusual to her, seemed to possess her. She stood still a moment in the hall and waited.