The girl sat quietly, looking out at the
dead brick wall. The slow step fell on her brain like the
sceptre of her master; if Knowles had looked in her face then, he
would have seen bared the secret of her life. Holmes had gone
by, unconscious of who was within the door. She had not seen
him; it was nothing but a step she heard. Yet a power, the power
of the girl's life, shook off all outward masks, all surface
cloudy fancies, and stood up in her with a terrible passion at
the sound; her blood burned fiercely; her soul looked out, her
soul as it was, as God knew it,--God and this man. No longer a
cold, clear face; you would have thought, looking at it, what a
strong spirit the soul of this woman would be, if set free in
heaven or in hell. The man who held it in his grasp went on
carelessly, not knowing that the mere sound of his step had
raised it as from the dead. She, and her right, and her pain,
were nothing to him now, she remembered, staring out at the
taunting hot sky. Yet so vacant was the sudden life opened
before her when he was gone, that, in the desperation of her
weakness, her mad longing to see him but once again, she would
have thrown herself at his feet, and let the cold, heavy step
crush her life out,--as he would have done, she thought, choking
down the icy smother in her throat, if it had served his purpose,
though it cost his own heart's life to do it. He would trample
her down, if she kept him back from his end; but be false to her,
false to himself, that he would never be!
The red bricks, the dusty desk covered with wool, the miserable
chicken peering out, grew sharper and more real.
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