And there, before him--what mockery! the neat pages of "The Stone House"
now almost completed.
He stared into the wall and saw her face, her red-gold hair upon the
pillow, her dark staring eyes--
Once the nurse came to him--Yes, she was suffering, but all went well ...
it would be about midnight, perhaps. There was no cause for alarm ....
He thought that the nurse looked at him with compassion. He turned fiercely
upon Life that it should have brought this to them when they were both so
young.
At last, about ten o'clock, able no longer to endure the silence of the
house--so ominous--and the gentle tap-tap of the branches upon the pane and
the whispering crackle of the fire, he went out....
A cold hard unreal world received him. Down Sloane Street the lines of
yellow lamps, bending at last until they met in sharp blue distance, were
soft and misty against the outline of the street, the houses were unreal in
the moonlight, a few people passed quickly, their footsteps sharp in the
frosty air--all the little painted doors of Sloane Street were blind and
secret.
He passed through Knightsbridge, into the Park. As the black trees closed
him in the fear of London came, tumbling upon him. He remembered that day
when he had sat, shivering, on a seat on the Embankment, and had heard that
note, sinister, threatening, through the noise and clattering traffic.
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