"Yes, sir. We had a telegram this afternoon. She said she would like to see you in the study, sir, as soon as you came in."
He went at once into the study. Anne was sitting there in her chair by the hearth. Her hat and jacket were thrown on the writing-table that stood near in the middle of the room. She rose as he came in, but made no advance to meet him. He stood still for a moment by the closed door, and they held each other with their eyes.
"I didn't expect you till to-morrow."
"I sent a telegram," she said.
"If you'd sent it to the office I'd have met you."
"I didn't want anybody to meet me."
He felt that her words had some reference to their loss, and to the sadness of her home-coming. A sigh broke from him; but he was unaware that he had sighed.
He sat down, not in his accustomed seat by the hearth, opposite to hers, but in a nearer chair by the writing-table. He saw that she had been writing letters. He pushed them away and turned his chair round so as to face her. His heart ached looking at her.
There were deep lines on her forehead; and she was very pale, even her small close mouth had no colour in it. She kept her sad eyes half hidden under their drooping lids. Her lips were tightly compressed, her narrow nostrils white and pinched. It was a face in which all the doors of life were closing; where the inner life went on tensely, secretly, behind the closing doors.
"Well," he said, "I'm very glad you've come back."