I fell asleep at last thinking of that, and imagining what I should need to say and do; and the next morning I went out to Stamford in a curious mood of deliberation; feeling, on the threshold of crisis, unnaturally calm and sure; as if I were somehow going with the stream, a small embodiment of predetermined force, a mouthpiece of the thing which was to be.
As she had done once before, Sheila opened the door for me. It was very plain that she was glad of my coming.
"Sure it's Mr. Crosby!" she exclaimed softly. "What's the matter, sir? You look white and tired like. 'Tis all the world seems upset lately."
"I want to see Miss Tabor, Sheila. Will you tell her that I am here?"
"That's the very thing I'm not to tell her, sir. She said most particular that she was not to see any one to-day; but—" Sheila frowned at me forbiddingly, "you sit down an' wait a minute, sir, an' I'll do me best. I'm a servant-girl no longer—ordhers is nothing to me."
"But, Sheila—" I began nervously.
"But nothin', Mr. Crosby. You sit down an' wait," and she was gone before I could say another word. I sat in the great room, as if at the portals of judgment day, every fiber of me keenly alive, and yet my mind knowing no particular focus of thought. The future gaped before me like eternity, something too vaguely large for definition or comprehension. I remember that I kept whispering dryly to myself that man was master of his fate, and feeling infinitesimally comforted by the sophistry.
The curtains at the door parted, and Lady stood looking into my eyes. I saw before she spoke that she knew why I had come.
"I was sure that it was you," she said at last. "Sheila told me that a young man was down-stairs, and that she could not get him to go away."
"She told me," I said, "that you did not wish to see me. Was that true?"