down
huddled, and stayed there ever so long, numb and chilly. Undress--go to
bed? Not for the world. By the time the morning came she had got to
forget that she had dreamed. For very shame she had got to forget that;
no one should see. Her cheeks and ears and lips were burning, but her
body felt icy cold. Then--what time she did not know at all--she felt
she must go out and sit on the stairs. They had always been her
comforters, those wide, shallow, cosey stairs. Out and down the passage,
past all their rooms--his the last--to the dark stairs, eerie at night,
where the scent of age oozed out of the old house. All doors below,
above, were closed; it was like looking down into a well, to sit with her
head leaning against the banisters. And silent, so silent--just those
faint creakings that come from nowhere, as it might be the breathing of
the house. She put her arms round a cold banister and hugged it hard.
It hurt her, and she embraced it the harder. The first tears of
self-pity came welling up, and without warning a great sob burst out of
her. Alarmed at the sound, she smothered her mouth with her arm. No
good; they came breaking out! A door opened; all the blood rushed to her
heart and away from it, and with a little dreadful gurgle she was silent.
Some one was listening. How long that terrible listening lasted she had
no idea; then footsteps, and she was conscious that it was standing in
the dark behind her. A foot touched her back. She gave a little gasp.
Derek's voice whispered hoarsely:

"What? Who are you?"

And, below her breath, she answered: "Nedda."

His arms wrenched her away from the banister, his voice in her ear said:

"Nedda, darling, Nedda!"

But despair had sunk too deep; she could only quiver and shake and try to
drive sobbing out of her breath. Then, most queer, not his words, nor
the feel of his arms, comforted her--any one could pity!--but the smell
and the roughness of his Norfolk jacket. So he, too, had not been in
bed; he, too, had been unhappy! And, burying her face in his sleeve, she
murmured:

"Oh, Derek! Why?"

"I didn't want them all to see. I can't bear to give it away. Nedda,
come down lower and let's love each other!"

Softly, stumbling, clinging together, they went down to the last turn of
the wide stairs. How many times had she not sat there, in white frocks,
her hair hanging down as now, twisting the tassels of little programmes
covered with hierogly