stairs.

She went to her own room, though her feet failed her at the threshold
and she sank helplessly to the floor. Too weak to stand, she made her
way on her knees to her bed, leaving the candle in the hall, just
outside her door. As she had suspected, it was hardest of all to enter
this room.

A pink and white gown of dimity, yellowed, and grimed with dust, yet
lay upon her bed. Cobwebs were woven over the lace that trimmed the
neck and sleeves. Out of the fearful shadows, mute reminders of a lost
joy mocked her from every corner of the room.

She knelt there until some measure of strength came back to her, and,
with it, a mad fancy. "To-night," she said to herself, "I will be
brave. For once I will play a part, since to-morrow I shall be free.
To-night, it shall be as though nothing had happened--as though I were
to be married to-morrow and not to--to Death!"

She laughed wildly, and, even to her own ears, it had a fantastic,
unearthly sound. The empty rooms took up the echo and made merry with
it, the sound dying at last into a silence like that of the tomb.

She brought in the candle, took the dimity gown from the bed, and shook
it to remove the dust. In her hands it fell apart, broken, because it
was too frail to tear. She laid it on a chair, folding it carefully,
then took the dusty bedding from her bed and carried it into the hall,
dust and all. In an oaken chest in a corner of her room was her store
of linen, hemmed exquisitely and embroidered with the initials: "E. G."