No, indeed; not another minute that she could help! And he
would sleep there till all hours of the morning; he had done it before;
the longer the better, this time.
She had recoiled into the narrow hall, driven by an uncontrollable
revulsion; and there she stood, pale and quivering with a disgust that
only deepened as she looked her last upon the shaded face and the
inanimate frame in the chair. Rachel could not account for the intensity
of her feeling; it bordered upon nausea, and for a time prevented her
from retracing the single step which at length enabled her to shut both
doors as quietly as she had opened them, after switching off the light
from force of habit. There was another light still glowing in the hall,
and, again from habit, Rachel put it out also before setting foot upon
the stairs. A moment later she was standing terror-stricken in the dark.
It was no sound from the study, but the tiniest of metallic rattles from
the flap of the letter-box in the front door. The wind might have done
it, for the flap had lost its spring; and, though the noise was not
repeated, to the wind Rachel put it down, as she mounted the stairs at
last in a flutter that caused her both shame and apprehension.
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