With an awful creeping dread upon her, Heather opened the door of the closet where Prissy hung up her gown, and found, not the girl’s best dress, bonnet, and shawl, but empty pegs—a fearful vacancy.
What could it all mean? She looked again around the apartment, and perceived Prissy’s box was gone. Clearly, her trusty domestic had departed, not merely for the afternoon but for a longer period.
With a sense of suffocation on her, Heather walked to the small window which was partially open, and stood there wondering what she should do next.
The state of the house increased her difficulty as to the best means of explaining her return to Arthur. Supposing he had made any arrangement with which her presence would interfere; supposing it should seem as though she had come back to play the part of a spy, to be a torment instead of a blessing; what could he say, what was there he might not imagine?
That Prissy ever left the house of her own good-will, Heather’s understanding refused to credit; and why Arthur should have sent her away, Heather likewise could not comprehend.
If she had done anything wrong, and been discharged, she would have taken all her clothes; if she had not done anything wrong, why did Arthur let her go? Over this question, Heather, still with her bonnet on, stood puzzling; and, as she stood, she saw the men leave off work and don their coats, and pass out of the yard; at first, in gangs, afterwards in twos and threes—finally, one by one.
There they went—foremen, overlookers, clerks, sub-manager; finally, Arthur went down to the gate, talking to Morrison as they walked.
At the gate Morrison paused and seemed impressing something earnestly on Mr. Dudley, to which the latter listened with an appearance of interest. Then Arthur replied; and, at length satisfied, as it seemed, Morrison touched his hat, and passed through the gate, while Arthur looked after him. As he came up the yard, Heather, from her post of observation, could see his face distinctly; that face which had struck her girlish fancy, but which was now so changed—so changed! oh, God!
As she looked at him, and remembered the first day they had ever set eyes on one another, the tears came welling up, and for a moment she could not see him because of the mist which blinded her.
Poor Arthur! Poor Arthur! In the after days it was a comfort to her to recollect that at that moment there came no thought of selfish pity into her mind for poor Heather. Poor Heather! changed and broken too.