had gone away to seek his interview with Watson, sleep had come to them,
and even Arthur, on whose thin cheeks the smears left by crying were
still visible, was quite unconscious of his mother. She looked at them
from time to time, by the light of a bit of a candle she had placed on a
box beside her; but she did not kiss them, and her eyes had no tears.
From time to time she looked quickly round her, as though startled by a
sound, a breathing.

Presently, shivering with cold, she went into her own room. There,
mechanically, she took off her outer dress, as though to go to bed; but
when she had done so her hands fell by her side; she stood motionless
till, suddenly wrapping an old shawl round her, she took up her candle
and went downstairs again.

As she pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs, she saw Isaac,
where she had left him, sitting on his chair, bent forward, his hands
dropping between his knees, his gaze fixed on a bit of dying fire in the
grate.

'Isaac!'

He looked up with the unwillingness of one who hates the sound he hears,
and saw her standing on the lowest step. Her black hair had fallen upon
her shoulders, her quick breath shook the shawl she held about her, and
the light in her hand showed the anguished brightness of the eyes.

'Isaac, are yer comin up?'

The question maddened him. He turned to look at her more fixedly.