of the interrupted fairy-tale--though through it all she was
wrung by the thought that, just twenty-four hours earlier, she and the
child had sat in the same place, listening for the trot of Bessy's
horse....

The day passed: the hands of the clocks moved, food was cooked and
served, blinds were drawn up or down, lamps lit and fires renewed...all
these tokens of the passage of time took place before her, while her
real consciousness seemed to hang in some dim central void, where
nothing happened, nothing would ever happen....

And now Cicely was in bed, the last "long-distance" call was answered,
the last orders to kitchen and stable had been despatched, Wyant had
stolen down to her with his hourly report--"no change"--and she was
waiting in the library for the Gaineses.

Carriage-wheels on the gravel: they were there at last. Justine started up
and went into the hall. As she passed out of the library the outer door
opened, and the gusty night swooped in--as, at the same hour the day
before, it had swooped in ahead of the dreadful procession--preceding now
the carriageful of Hanaford relations: Mr. Gaines, red-glazed, brief and
interrogatory; Westy, small, nervous, ill at ease with his grief; and Mrs.
Gaines, supreme in the possession of a consolatory yet funereal manner,
and sinking on Justine's breast with the solemn whisper: "Have you sent
for the clergyman?"

XXVII

THE house was empty again.

A week had passed since Bessy's accident, and friends and relations had
dispersed. The household had fallen into its routine, the routine of
sickness and silence, and once more the perfectly-adjusted machine was
working on steadily, inexorably, like a natural law....

So at least it seemed to Justine's nerves, intolerably stretched, at
times, on the rack of solitude, of suspense, of forebodings. She had
been thankful when the Gaineses left--doubly thankful when a telegram
from Bermuda declared Mrs. Carbury to be "in despair" at her inability
to fly to Bessy's side--thankful even that Mr. Tredegar's professional
engagements made it impossible for him to do more than come down, every
second or third day, for a few hours; yet, though in some ways it was a
relief to be again in sole command, there were moments when the weight
of responsibility, and the inability to cry out her fears and her
uncertainties, seemed almost unendurable.

Wyant was her chief reliance. He had risen so gallantly above his
weakness, beco