"A week or two ago," she said, "my poor darling was talking about dying, as you young folks will talk, and she said she hoped she should not die in the night, when the wind was howling round the house. A bitter winter night would be worst of all, she said. It won't be that but I fancied the wind was getting up, and it frightened me to think how one would hear it moaning in this old place. It is only a fancy, of course, but she might have thought of it again lying there."
Hardwicke could not have put it into words, but the fancy came to him too of Sissy's soul flying out into the windy waste of air.
"Of course it is nothing—it is nonsense," said Mrs. Middleton. "But if it might be, as she said, when it is warm and light!—if it might be!" She stopped with a catching in her voice.
Harry, in his matter-of-fact way, offered consolation: "Dear Mrs. Middleton, the sun will rise by four, and Greenwell says there won't be any wind."
"Yes, yes! And she may not remember."
"I hope you have been taking some rest," he ventured to say after a brief silence.
"Yes. I was lying down this afternoon, and Sarah will take part of the night." She paused, and spoke again in a still lower tone: "Couldn't you persuade him to go away?"
"Mr. Thorne?"
She nodded: "I will not have her troubled. I asked her if she would see him again, and she said, 'No.' I wish he would go. What is the use of his waiting there?"
Hardwicke shrugged his shoulders: "It is useless for me to try and persuade him. He won't stir for me."