The sweet
expression came back to his lips, and the haggardness faded from his
face, leaving it as fresh as a boy's.
She rose and crept away.
VIII
SHE had lost the sense of time, and did not know how late it was till
she came out into the street and saw that all the windows were dark
between Miss Hatchard's and the Royall house.
As she passed from under the black pall of the Norway spruces she
fancied she saw two figures in the shade about the duck-pond. She drew
back and watched; but nothing moved, and she had stared so long into the
lamp-lit room that the darkness confused her, and she thought she must
have been mistaken.
She walked on, wondering whether Mr. Royall was still in the porch. In
her exalted mood she did not greatly care whether he was waiting for her
or not: she seemed to be floating high over life, on a great cloud of
misery beneath which every-day realities had dwindled to mere specks in
space. But the porch was empty, Mr. Royall's hat hung on its peg in the
passage, and the kitchen lamp had been left to light her to bed.
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