But when she went in she sat long alone in the dark.


Chapter 2.VII. Waldo Goes Out to Taste Life, and Em Stays At Home and
Tastes It.

At nine o'clock in the evening, packing his bundles for the next morning's
start, Waldo looked up, and was surprised to see Em's yellow head peeping
in at his door. It was many a month since she had been there. She said
she had made him sandwiches for his journey, and she stayed a while to help
him put his goods into the saddlebags.

"You can leave the old things lying about," she said; "I will lock the
room, and keep it waiting for you to come back some day."

To come back some day! Would the bird ever return to its cage? But he
thanked her. When she went away he stood on the doorstep holding the
candle till she had almost reached the house. But Em was that evening in
no hurry to enter, and, instead of going in at the back door, walked with
lagging footsteps round the low brick wall that ran before the house.
Opposite the open window of the parlour she stopped. The little room, kept
carefully closed in Tant Sannie's time, was well lighted by a paraffin
lamp; books and work lay strewn about it, and it wore a bright, habitable
aspect. Beside the lamp at the table in the corner sat Lyndall, the open
letters and papers of the day's post lying scattered before her, while she
perused the columns of a newspaper. At the centre table, with his arms
folded on an open paper, which there was not light enough to read, sat
Gregory. He was looking at her. The light from the open window fell on
Em's little face under its white kapje as she looked in, but no one glanced
that way.