He was nothing. She was right. He could see himself now, sagging, disordered, his forehead against her locked door. She was speaking. What was she saying? Was she saying, “Wait, Edward, wait only a little minute ... darling Edward, I love you ... at last.”
No, he could not hear what she was saying. He was on his knees to her locked door. “Emily ... Emily....”
She would not answer.
Yes, she answered. She opened the door. She ran past him into the middle of the outer room. She turned and faced him.... Her cheeks were very red and her eyes excited.
“Leave me alone,” she shouted harshly and hideously. “Can’t you leave me alone? I can’t bear you. I couldn’t bear to touch you—you poor sickly thing....”
That was nothing. What she had said was nothing. Silence had covered it up now. If he could put his arms about her again....
She hit him on the face. She hit him again and again.
She was crying again. She would not let him reach a rock of silence in this wild sea in which he was drowning. She was crying loudly. And whose voice was that, beseeching against her crying? “Emily ... Emily ... Emily....” Was it his own voice?
“You must believe it now,” she sobbed. “You—poor—thing....”
She was gone. The seas were still. A desert ... a continent of silence....