Once more he had shifted his position, and was looking straight at her with a curious air of detached interest. His face looked almost natural, though it was still flushed with that forced laughter; but the mirth itself was gone.
Then he spoke abruptly and sharply, in the tone of a man who speaks to a tiresome child; and a little conversation followed, in which she found herself taking a part, as in an unnatural dream.
“You had better take care,” he said.
“I am not afraid.”
“Well—I have warned you. It is at your own risk. What are you doing?”
“I am praying.”
“I thought so. … Well, you had better take care.”
She nodded at him; closed her eyes once more with new confidence, and set to work.
After that a series of little scenes followed, of which, a few days later, she could only give a disconnected account.
She had heard the locking of the front door a long while ago; and she knew that the household was gone to bed.
It was then that she realized how long the struggle would be. But the next incident was marked in her memory by her hearing the tall clock in the silent hall outside beat one. It was immediately after this that he spoke once more.
“I have stood it long enough,” he said, in that same abrupt manner.
She opened her eyes.