The house was silent, the children slept, the maids had gone up-stairs. The hours wore on into the night. The footsteps passed up and down the street only at long intervals. The air grew chill in the house. In the quiet, the watcher could hear the trains far, far off across the flats.
At twelve o’clock the spring rain began to fall, gently at first, and then in torrents, coming straight down with a rushing sound that blotted out both trains and footsteps. And the train was late, as she had said it would be, it was after one o’clock when Justin ran up the steps with that firm, quick tread of his, opened the door, and came in. His face was bright and eager; he was full yet of the pleasure of the evening, and anxious to make her a sharer of it. He turned to speak to his wife, and the glow on his countenance died out instantly as with a breath from the tomb.
Lois sat stiffly upright in a chair, facing him. The light had gone out in the lamp, and the one gas-burner above, with its meager flicker, cast the room into the desolate half-shadows that speak of the late hours of the night. She had worn a scarlet house-gown in the evening; the trailing folds swept the floor around her slippered feet now, her bare arms gleamed below the sleeves that only reached beyond the elbow. Around her was flung a gray cloak, buttoned askew at the throat, and in one of her folded hands she held a black lace scarf. Her face was white, and her large eyes stared straight before her rigidly, yet with a wild gleam in them; as he looked at her she rose and moved as if to pass him.
He stepped forward with his dripping overcoat half off.
“Where are you going?”
She made no answer, but looked at him as she edged on farther to the door.
“Where are you going? Answer me.”
Her lips stiffly framed the word: “Out.”
“Out! What do you mean?” He spoke roughly, in a terrible anxiety and anger mixed together. “What are you working yourself up to all this foolishness for?”
Again she did not answer.