"Let me see that it is all safe for you, against you do go in," said Herbert, laying his hand on the handle of the door to open it.
To open it? Nay: he could not open it. The handle resisted his efforts. "Did you lock it, Anna?"
Anna smiled at what she thought his awkwardness. "Thee art turning it the wrong way, Herbert. See!"
He withdrew his hand to give place to hers, and she turned the handle softly and gently the contrary way; that is, she essayed to turn it. But it would not turn for her, any more than it had turned for Herbert Dare. A sick feeling of terror rushed over Anna, as a conviction of the truth grew upon her. Hester Dell had returned, and she was locked out!
In good truth, it was no less a calamity. Hester Dell had not gone far from the door on her errand, when she met the doctor's boy with his basket, hastening up with the medicine. "I was just coming after it," said Hester to him. "Whatever brings thee so late?"
"Mr. Parry was called out this morning before he had time to make it up, and he has only just come home," was the boy's reply.
"Better late than never," he somewhat saucily added.
"Well, so it is," acquiesced Hester, who rarely gave anything but a meek retort. And she turned back home, letting herself in with the latch-key. The house appeared precisely as she had left it, except that Anna's candle had disappeared from the mahogany slab in the passage. "That's right! the child's gone to bed," soliloquised she.
She proceeded to go to bed herself. The Quaker's was an early household. All Hester had to do now, was to give Patience her sleeping-draught. "Let me see," continued Hester, still in soliloquy, "I think I did lock the back door."
To make sure, she tried the key and found it was not locked. Rather wondering, for she certainly thought she had locked it, but dismissing the subject the next minute from her thoughts, she locked it now and took the key out. Then she continued her way up to Patience. Patience, lying there lonely and dull with her night-light, turned her eyes on Hester.