They looked to her unreal, or as people look who remain
unconscious that some great explosion is about to take place beside
them. But there was no explosion, and they went on standing by
the chairs and the tables. Mrs. Thornbury no longer saw them, but,
penetrating through them as though they were without substance, she saw
the house, the people in the house, the room, the bed in the room, and
the figure of the dead lying still in the dark beneath the sheets.
She could almost see the dead. She could almost hear the voices of the
mourners.
"They expected it?" she asked at length.
Miss Allan could only shake her head.
"I know nothing," she replied, "except what Mrs. Flushing's maid told
me. She died early this morning."
The two women looked at each other with a quiet significant gaze, and
then, feeling oddly dazed, and seeking she did not know exactly what,
Mrs. Thornbury went slowly upstairs and walked quietly along the
passages, touching the wall with her fingers as if to guide herself.
Housemaids were passing briskly from room to room, but Mrs. Thornbury
avoided them; she hardly saw them; they seemed to her to be in another
world. She did not even look up directly when Evelyn stopped her. It
was evident that Evelyn had been lately in tears, and when she looked
at Mrs. Thornbury she began to cry again. Together they drew into the
hollow of a window, and stood there in silence.
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