“Why?” she asked, “is the outside door locked?”
“No, not yet. But the street, the dark, the snow!”
“Oh, only that! But I went out alone. No, no, nobody needs to go along with me. I know my way.”
Nobody thought of opposing her, her voice was so remarkably firm; almost scornful, we thought.
We lighted her to the door and saw her small feet step quickly on the yellow lamplight, which grew paler along the tile floor and was broken by the light on the stairway.
When she was half out of sight we called for the last time, “You’ll come again, won’t you?”
She turned her head. From under the ugly old hat her eyes looked out at us, deep and sombre.
“No,” she said, “I shan’t come again. Why should I?”
She was gone, and we all rushed forward to the window, opened it and leaned out, stretching ourselves over the sill. She had not got down yet. Before us lay the black bulks of the houses, defiantly heavy and motionless to our gaze. Here and there was a faint yellow gleam from a street lamp; one could see some large, loose flakes glide through it. The air was gray, swarmingly alive with darkness and a little farther out across the roofs the church tower stood with its shining dials against the black horizon.
Then she came out of the house door; we could hear her steps resound up to where we were through the chilly air. We followed the little black, indistinct figure out to the corner, where the lamplight took hold of it and threw it out into tawny, pale relief. With that she was gone, vanished into the blackness, into the snow and night and threatening uncertainty from which she had come.