up again to her room as she had done before. Instead of lying
down she sat again in the darkness without closing the door, and
listened with a beating heart to every sound from downstairs. The
servants had gone to bed. She ultimately heard the two men come
from the study and cross to the dining-room, where supper had been
lingering for more than an hour. The door was left open, and she
found that the meal, such as it was, passed off between her father
and her lover without any remark, save commonplaces as to
cucumbers and melons, their wholesomeness and culture, uttered in
a stiff and formal way. It seemed to prefigure failure.

Shortly afterwards Stephen came upstairs to his bedroom, and was
almost immediately followed by her father, who also retired for
the night. Not inclined to get a light, she partly undressed and
sat on the bed, where she remained in pained thought for some
time, possibly an hour. Then rising to close her door previously
to fully unrobing, she saw a streak of light shining across the
landing. Her father's door was shut, and he could be heard
snoring regularly. The light came from Stephen's room, and the
slight sounds also coming thence emphatically denoted what he was
doing. In the perfect silence she could hear the closing of a lid
and the clicking of a lock,--he was fastening his hat-box. Then
the buckling of straps and the click of another key,--he was
securing his portmanteau. With trebled foreboding she opened her
door softly, and went towards his. One sensation pervaded her to
distraction. Stephen, her handsome youth and darling, was going
away, and she might never see him again except in secret and in
sadness--perhaps never more. At any rate, she could no longer
wait till the morning to hear the result of the interview, as she
had intended. She flung her dressing-gown round her, tapped