But Mrs. Barry did not pause. She went into the house and closed her door. She stood in the middle of the room like a creature deprived of animation. Through the parted curtains of an open window she heard the washerwoman call out to the man in uniform:
“I just had a bet up with Mrs. Barry, Sim Carter! She must think I'm blind. I told her you left a letter at her house this morning, and she says she never saw hair nor hide of it.”
“It is there all right,” the man laughed. “I gave it to Miss Dora.”
“That's what I told her. I say, Sim Carter, have they heard anything more yet about—” But the postman was gone.
Through the window, by stooping and peering forth, Mrs. Barry could see him crossing the street to the next house. With a heart as heavy as lead she went into the parlor; Dora was not there. She passed on to the kitchen; no one was there, either. There was something incongruous in the contented aspect of the fat, gray cat lying and purring in the sunlight on the door-sill. Bliss like that under the coat of a mere dumb brute when she had this to bear—this lurking, insinuating, maddening thing, which had been creeping slowly upon her night and day until it had assumed the shape and size of a monster of mental and spiritual torture.
She went on to Dora's room, where she found the girl seated on her bed. The great, long-lashed, somnolent eyes, over the exquisite beauty of which men and women had marvelled, were red as from weeping. She gave her mother, as the old woman stood in the doorway, a weary, despondent glance, and then, half startled, looked down. Mrs. Barry saw the charred remains of a sheet of writing-paper in the open fireplace, and a fresh pang darted through her.
“Did you need me, mother?” Dora inquired, softly, in the musical voice so many had admired, and which to-day sounded sweeter, more appealing, than ever before.
“Mrs. Chumley says you got a letter from the postman this morning,” Mrs. Barry said, tremblingly.
The girl seemed to hesitate just an instant; then she nodded, mutely.
“Who was it from, daughter?”