I step back with my hands before my mouth, my eyes on my own soft face: it has started back into the darkness beyond the glass, and seems to swim, or hang, in space. I think, He won''t do it! He dare not do it! Then I think: He will. I go to the door and put my ear against the wood. I hear a voice, and then a tread. The tread grows soft, another door closes—of course, he will wait for Mr Way to go to his bed. He will wait for that.
I take up my lamp and go quickly, quickly: the shade throws crescents of light upon the walls. I have not time to dress—cannot dress, without Agnes to help me—but know I must not see him in my nightgown. I find stockings, garters, slippers, a cloak. My hair, that is loose, I try to fasten; but I am clumsy with the pins, and my gloves—and the medicine I have swallowed—make me clumsier. I grow afraid. My heart beats quick again, but now it beats against the drops, it is like a vessel beating hard against the pull of a sluggish river. I put my hand to it, and feel the yielding of my breast—unlaced, it feels; unguarded, unsafe.
But the tug of the drops is greater than the resistance of my fear.
That is the point of them, after all. For restlessness. When at length he comes, tapping at my door with his fingernail, I think I seem calm to him. I say at once, ''You know my maid is very close— asleep, but close. One cry will wake her.'' He bows and says nothing.⑩本⑩作⑩品⑩由⑩思⑩兔⑩在⑩線⑩閱⑩讀⑩網⑩友⑩整⑩理⑩上⑩傳⑩