He had a roll of paper in his hand, which
he bundled together as he dropped the curtain back into place and
then stopped to smooth it out over the floor with the precision of
long habit. All this she saw in the mirror as though she had been
at his back in the other room; but when she beheld him turn, then
panic seized her and she started breathlessly for the spot where
he had left her, glad that there was so little light, and praying
that he might be deaf to her steps, which, gently as they fell,
sounded portentously loud in her own ears.
She had reached her chair, but she had not had time to reseat
herself when she beheld him approaching with the bundle of loose
sheets clutched in his hand.
"I want you to sit here and read," said he, laying the manuscript
down on a small table near the wall under a gas-jet which he
immediately lighted. "I am going back to my own desk. If you want
to speak, you may; I shall not be working." And she heard his
footsteps retreating again in and out among the furniture till he
reached his own chair and sat before his own table.
This ended all sound in the room excepting the beating of her own
heart, which had become tumultuous.
How could she sit there and read words, with the blood pounding in
her veins and her eyes half blind with terror and excitement? It
was only the necessity of the case which made it possible. She
knew that she would never be released from that spot until she had
read what had been placed before her.
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