“There are other things I want to speak of, but I know this is not the time. I shall hope to see you again soon, and please try to think better of me, Nan!”
She remained where she had stood throughout the interview until she heard the iron gate click behind him.
She put out the lights and climbed the stairs slowly. The loneliness that had stifled her before Eaton’s appearance had deepened. She passed through the silent upper hall and locked herself in her room, resolved not to leave it until the world woke to life again.
“No! No! No!” she moaned aloud to fortify her resolution....
At one o’clock she was still awake, questioning, debating with herself, while strange shadow-shapes danced in the surrounding blackness.
CHAPTER XVIII
NAN AGAINST NAN
Was Billy right, after all?
The question haunted her insistently. She lighted the lamp by her bed and tried to read, but the words were a confused jumble. She threw down her book impatiently. If only she had kept Fanny Copeland in the house or had given the papers hidden away in the old table to Eaton to carry away, she would have escaped this struggle.
Her thoughts were fixed upon Eaton for a time. He had enjoined her to take a firmer hold of herself. She readily imagined what his abhorrence would be of the evil thing Copeland had proposed....
But, after all, Farley had meant to treat her generously, as Copeland had said, and if in some angry mood he had rewritten his will to reduce his provision for her, there was no reason why she shouldn’t seize an opportunity to right a wrong he never really intended....