Day after day, she forced her life to run along in its
usual grooves, going out of the house with a laugh on her lips and,
in her heart, the sickening dread of the tidings which might greet
her upon her return. Again and again, as she passed the door left
open during the nurse's temporary absence from the room, she put
forth all her strength to keep herself from stealing in, to look
just once on the unconscious face of the man who had made her
whole life. But she held herself in check, and never once yielded to
the temptation. Well she might hold herself in check. She realized
only too keenly that, once face to face with Weldon, she would have
to do over again all the weary work of those weeks of self-
repression.
Then the stupor had given place to delirium; and, even in her room
and behind her closed door, she could hear the low, muttering voice.
After that, she crouched no more outside his room. It would have
been impossible for her to say just what it was that she dreaded to
hear. Nevertheless, she closed her ears as resolutely as she closed
her door; but, when she met the nurse on the stairs, she hurried
onward with her face turned away and her cheeks ablaze.
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