Evelyn waited a long time, shivering and chill in those dismal hours of the morning. She saw the servants conclude their work and go away unwillingly to their rest. She sat down in the library, with the room open to the dark, desolated hall, in which only a faint light was left burning, and listened to all the creakings and rustlings that seemed to run through the still and sleeping house. No one came. Had his father, after all, gone to his door and made peace? Had the tired boy fallen asleep in spite of himself? Had it all been vapouring, as James said? She waited in her ball dress, with a rough woollen shawl, the first she could find, wrapped about her; and the lamp, burning with a steady, monotonous light, throwing a lengthened gleam upon the dark curtains of the glass door.
It had all been almost as she thought. Rowland had paused, his feet had almost carried him, his heart, yearning, had almost forced him to Archie’s room to make a last appeal, perhaps to listen, perhaps to understand. But he would not allow himself to be moved by impulse, and turned heavily in the other direction to his own room, where he fell, as he had prophesied, heavily asleep. And Archie, tired beyond description, his very passion unable to resist the creeping languor in his brain, had almost gone to sleep too, leaning his head against the bed, in the attitude in which he had thrown himself down in order that he might try to understand this new mystery. But in this he was not successful, for after a minute or two, the sound of the heavy step, which was his father’s, startled him, and he became more wide awake than ever, listening with a beating heart, wondering would he come. He heard the pause, and wondered more and more. When Rowland took the other direction, Archie sprang to his feet and began hurriedly to change his dress. It took him a considerable time to do this for his fingers were trembling, and his whole being shaken. He had to pull everything out of his drawers to find the old shabby coat which he had worn when he first came to Rosmore. The room looked as if it had been scattered in scorn or frenzy with everything he possessed. But that was not Archie’s meaning. He got his old suit at last, and put it on, tossing his evening clothes into a corner. He took off the watch his father had given him, and denuded himself of everything that had come to him since Rowland returned home. Poor Archie, his humiliation was complete. The old clothes seemed to bring back the old mien, and it was the lad of the Sauchiehall road, and not the young gentleman of Rosmore, who, seeing that the lights were out and all the house silent, stepped out of the chaos of his desolated bedchamber and took his way downstairs.
There was a jar upon the great staircase, the sound thrilling through the silence, of a slip upon some hardened plank, and Evelyn awoke with a start from a troubled doze. She drew her shawl close round her, for it was very cold, the coldest moment of the night just before dawn. She had drawn the curtain half over the library door, that the light might not betray her, and it was only by the dim rays of the night lamp in the hall that she could distinguish the dark figure going softly towards the door. He had his hand upon it when she stole out quietly and caught his arm in her hands.
“Archie! where are you going? You are not going out at this hour of the night?”
“Is it you, Mrs. Rowland?” he said with a start. “If I had known that anybody was up, I should not have come this way.”
“Thank God you did not know. Archie, where are you going out of your father’s house?”
“My father’s house!” he said with a faint laugh. “But why go over it again? you were there and you heard the whole.”
“And you heard me?”
“You! I was not thinking of you,” he said with a contempt which was purely matter of fact and natural, meaning no offence.
“Nevertheless you heard what I said.”