A wandering wind had risen at nightfall, and it came softly across the snow, and tried the doors and windows as with a furtive hand. She could hear it coming as from an immense distance, passing with a sigh, returning plaintive, homeless, forlorn, to whisper round the house.
J'ai vu sous le soleil tomber bien d'autres choses
Que les feuilles des bois, et l'écume des eaux,
Bien d'autres s'en aller que le parfum des roses
Et le chant des oiseaux.
That wind meant more snow. Involuntarily she laid down her book and listened to it.
How like the sound of the wind was to wandering footsteps, slowly drawing near, creeping round the house. She could almost have fancied that a hand touched the shutters, was even now trying to raise the latch of the door.
A moment of intense silence, in which the wind seemed to hold its breath and listen without, while she listened within. And then a low, distinct knock upon the door.
She did not move.
"It is the wind," she said to herself; but she knew it was not.
The knock came again, low, urgent, not to be denied.
She had become very cold. She had supposed fear was an emotion of the mind. She had not reckoned for this slow paralysis of the body.
She managed to creep to the window and unbar the shutter an inch or two. By pressing her face against the extreme corner of the pane she could just discern in the snowlight part of a man's figure, wrapped in a long cloak.