t the hollows of her brow. The wine made the handkerchief pink as a rose, and her head, where I chafed it, grew crimson. Her face was cool under my hand. Her eyelids fluttered. When they lifted, I stepped from her.
''Thank you,'' she said quietly, her gaze very soft.
She drank more of the wine. It was quality stuff. What she left, I finished, and it went through me like a flame.
''Now,'' I said, ''you must change.'' She was dressed for her supper. I had set out her walking-gown. ''But we must leave off the cage.''
For there was no room for a crinoline. Without it, her short dress at last became a long one, and she seemed slenderer than ever. She
had grown thin. I gave her stout boots to wear. Then I showed her the bags. She touched them, and shook her head.
''You''ve done everything,'' she said. ''I should never have thought of it all. I should never have done any of it, without you.''
She held my gaze, looking grateful and sad. God knows how my face seemed. I turned away. The house was creaking, settling down as the maids went up. Then came the clock again, chiming half-past nine. She said,
''Three hours, until he comes.''
She said it in the same slow, flinching way that I had heard her say, once, ''Three weeks.''
We put the lamp out in her parlour, and stood at her window. We could not see the river, but we gazed at the wall of the park and thought of the water lying beyond it, cool and ready, waiting like us. We stood for an hour, saying almost nothing. Sometimes she shivered. ''Are you cold?'' I''d say then. But she was not cold. At last the waiting began to tell even on me, and I began to fidget. I thought I might not have packed her bags as I should have. I thought I might have left out her linen, or her jewels, or that white glove. I had put the glove in, I knew it; but I was become like her, restless as a flea. I went to her bedroom and opened the bags, leaving her at the window. I took out all the gowns and linen, and packed them again. Then, as I tightened a strap on a buckle, it broke. The leather was so old it was almost perished. I got a needle, and sewed the strap tight, in great, wild stitches. I put my mouth to the thread to bite it, and tasted salt.