“Do you remember what I told you once?” he said to her another time, “that Nicholas could bring you out to him, even at midnight, if he gave his mind to it?”
She wondered how long this strange period would last; she was not even impatient; the core of peace and silence within her lay so certain, so quiet, that she dwelt already as it were serene in the fulfilment of herself and Lovel.
Calladine came to her door to find it locked against him. He shook the handle. “Clare! it is I.” A wild winter night; the wind blew along the passage, lifting the loose matting on the floor, the gas-jet on the stair flickered and below the well of the staircase was dark. “Clare!” said Calladine again, shaking the handle.
Her voice within answered him, faint, shut away.
“Yes, I am here; I am in bed.”
She was there! the house contained her at least; she had not fled.
“Let me come in, Clare.”
A long pause, and then her voice again.
“I cannot, Richard.”