So much, in fact, had she endeavoured to avoid
their contact that, on one occasion, when she and Sally had been
climbing up to the second floor, and the door of his room was opened,
through which his voice had sounded, calling to Sally, she had run
hurriedly up the stairs out of sight, her heart thumping with
excitement when he had shouted out--
"Who the devil's that?"
The inclination to shout back--"What the devil's that to you?" she
had clipped on the tip of her tongue; but only for Sally's sake.
On this evening, then, that the settlement was drawn up, Sally had
slowly climbed the stairs to the floor above, and once in her little
sitting-room, with the door closed behind her, she had seated herself
upon the settee near the fireplace and gazed into the cheerless,
unlighted fire with dry and tearless eyes.
To her, the shadow of the end fell on everything. Just a little more
than three years and a bend in the road had shown it stretching across
her path. True, it was only a shadow. He had said nothing whatever
about leaving her; had not even suggested it in the slightest word
he had uttered. She must pass through the shadow, then; but what lay
upon the other side was beyond her knowledge, though not beyond her
fear.
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