Her heart jumped and then stood still. He was there, a few feet away;
and while her soul was tossing on seas of woe he had been quietly
sitting at his drawing-board. The sight of those two hands, moving with
their usual skill and precision, woke her out of her dream. Her eyes
were opened to the disproportion between what she had felt and the cause
of her agitation; and she was turning away from the window when one hand
abruptly pushed aside the drawing-board and the other flung down the
pencil.

Charity had often noticed Harney's loving care of his drawings, and the
neatness and method with which he carried on and concluded each task.
The impatient sweeping aside of the drawing-board seemed to reveal a new
mood. The gesture suggested sudden discouragement, or distaste for his
work and she wondered if he too were agitated by secret perplexities.
Her impulse of flight was checked; she stepped up on the verandah and
looked into the room.

Harney had put his elbows on the table and was resting his chin on his
locked hands. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat, and unbuttoned
the low collar of his flannel shirt; she saw the vigorous lines of his
young throat, and the root of the muscles where they joined the
chest. He sat staring straight ahead of him, a look of weariness and
self-disgust on his face: it was almost as if he had been gazing at a
distorted reflection of his own features. For a moment Charity looked at
him with a kind of terror, as if he had been a stranger under familiar
lineaments; then she glanced past him and saw on the floor an open
portmanteau half full of clothes. She understood that he was preparing
to leave, and that he had probably decided to go without seeing her. She
saw that the decision, from whatever cause it was taken, had disturbed
him deeply; and she immediately concluded that his change of plan was