After supper she went up to her room. She heard Mr. Royall cross the
passage, and presently the sounds below her window showed that he
had returned to the porch. She seated herself on her bed and began to
struggle against the desire to go down and ask him what had happened.
"I'd rather die than do it," she muttered to herself. With a word he
could have relieved her uncertainty: but never would she gratify him by
saying it.
She rose and leaned out of the window. The twilight had deepened into
night, and she watched the frail curve of the young moon dropping to
the edge of the hills. Through the darkness she saw one or two figures
moving down the road; but the evening was too cold for loitering, and
presently the strollers disappeared. Lamps were beginning to show here
and there in the windows. A bar of light brought out the whiteness of a
clump of lilies in the Hawes's yard: and farther down the street Carrick
Fry's Rochester lamp cast its bold illumination on the rustic flower-tub
in the middle of his grass-plot.
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