“I must get up. I must stand up on my feet,” she kept thinking. But still she did not rise. She felt utterly defenseless, utterly uncovered and at the other’s mercy.
If she could only have slipped across and locked the door, that would have given her an instant’s pause to gather herself together before Elizabeth’s entrance; but she could not move to do it.
“I’ll stand up. I’ll stand right up on my feet and meet her as soon as I hear her hand on the door,” she whispered to herself, every nerve in her body keyed for the expected sound.
But the sound did not come; a miracle happened; Elizabeth did not pause at Julie’s door. Julie heard her enter, heard her ask Mrs. Watkins some question, and then heard her feet beat a sharp patter along the passage and upstairs. Had she made a mistake? Been directed to the wrong room? Very slowly Julie relaxed and got upon her feet, her knees weak beneath her. She crept across and turned the key in the lock at last. Now there was a momentary barrier set between herself and that hand upon the door which she felt sure must come. Then she sat down in a chair and waited, her hands clinging tight together in her lap. She waited a very long time, an hour at least it seemed, and, except for an occasional shifting in her chair, a clasping and unclasping of her hands, or a faint dumb turning of her head from side to side, she did not stir. There was nothing she could do. She did not know where to find Tim, even if she had dared to slip out and search for him. He had told her he had some errands to do for the printer, and would probably be a little late. She did not know by which street he would return. There was nothing therefore to do but wait—wait for the footsteps to come down from upstairs, or for Tim’s to come up the cement walk outside. So she sat staring helplessly down at her clasped hands. She looked at them so long and steadfastly that they seemed at last to be detached from herself, not to be her hands any more, but to be separate personalities, small personalities—little people clinging very tight together there in the world of her lap, as though some disaster menaced. She felt dimly sorry for them.
At last she heard a door upstairs open—she was not sure which one it was—and then the steps that she knew were Elizabeth Bixby’s came down the stairs and down the hall. They would be at her door in an instant. The two little personalities in her lap, that were made of her hands, jumped desperately tight together. But again the feet did not pause, but pattered definitely past and out into the street. Julie leaped up and peered through the blinds. Perhaps she was mistaken: perhaps it was not Elizabeth after all. But it was. She saw her face distinctly as she went down the steps—and saw something else as well. Elizabeth had been crying—was still wiping her eyes rather blindly. How strange that was! What could have moved her to tears? The surprise of this stayed for a space the leap of relief over her departure; but in a moment it came, and Julie relaxed all over as though a warm beneficent tide flowed through her. Perhaps they were safe after all. Safe—
At this point there came an imperative knock and, when Julie forced herself to go over and open the door, she found Mrs. Watkins there eager with news.
“Well, you was right after all!” she announced. “The miracle’s happened. Miss Fogg’s niece’s been to see her—that was her just went down the steps.”
“That?” stammered Julie. “That—that lady that just went down the steps—Miss Fogg’s niece?”
Mrs. Watkins nodded. “M—h’m, that’s the wonderful niece. She asked me did Miss Fogg live here, and when she went away she told me she was her niece. She’s been upstairs with the old soul a right smart spell, an’ I heard her tell her when she left she’d be back to see her again in a couple of days. She said she was going to Camp Lee for a day or so. When she left I seen she’d been cryin’.”
“Yes,” Julie said, “I saw that, too.”