She heard her maid knock, and she hid her face and made no
answer. The knocking continued, and the discipline of habit
at length made her lift her head, compose her face and hold
out her hand to the note the woman brought her. It was a
word from Darrow--"May I see you?"--and she said at once, in
a voice that sounded thin and empty: "Ask Mr. Darrow to come
up."

The maid enquired if she wished to have her hair smoothed
first, and she answered that it didn't matter; but when the
door had closed, the instinct of pride drew her to her feet
and she looked at herself in the glass above the mantelpiece
and passed her hands over her hair. Her eyes were burning
and her face looked tired and thinner; otherwise she could
see no change in her appearance, and she wondered that at
such a moment her body should seem as unrelated to the self
that writhed within her as if it had been a statue or a
picture.

The maid reopened the door to show in Darrow, and he paused
a moment on the threshold, as if waiting for Anna to speak.
He was extremely pale, but he looked neither ashamed nor
uncertain, and she said to herself, with a perverse thrill
of appreciation: "He's as proud as I am."

Aloud she asked: "You wanted to see me?"

"Naturally," he replied in a grave voice.