She was
used to hover about them at this hour, but she strolled past,
unmindful now, the daily habit obliterated, the dumb little tie
quite broken. The twisted newspaper lay white on the shadowed
pavement before her eyes and she did not see that. She walked on
until she reached the gate and, folding her hands about one of the
brass globes surmounting the iron spikes, leaned over and probed
with impatient eyes the long dusk of the street; as far as he could
be seen coming she wished to see him.
It was too early. So she filled her eyes with pictures of the
daylight fading over woods and fields far out in the country. But
the entire flock of wistful thoughts settled at last about a large
house situated on a wooded hill some miles from town. A lawn
sloped upward to it from the turnpike, and there was a gravelled
driveway. She unlatched the gate, approached the house, passed
through the wide hall, ascended the stairs, stood at the door of
his room--waiting. Why did he not come? How could he linger?
Dreamily she turned back; and following a narrow walk, passed to
the rear of the house and thence across the lawn of turf toward the
garden.
A shower had fallen early in the day and the grass had been cut
afterwards. Afternoon sunshine had drunk the moisture, leaving the
fragrance released and floating. The warmth of the cooling earth
reached her foot through the sole of her slipper. On the plume of
a pine, a bird was sending its last call after the bright hours,
while out of the firs came the tumult of plainer kinds as they
mingled for common sleep.
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