asking whether David was all right. "Poor darling, having his
breakfast all alone," she said. Then she looked at the clock; Lloyd's
despatch could hardly arrive for another hour.

The still, hot morning stretched interminably before her. A dozen
times it was on her lips to order the trunks brought down from the
garret. A dozen times some undefined sense of fitness held her back.
When his answer came, when he actually said the word--then; but not
till then.... What time was it? After eleven! She would go into the
garden, where she could look down the road and have the first glimpse
of Eddy Minns climbing the hill. With her thoughts in galloping
confusion, she put on her flat hat with its twist of white lace about
the crown, and went out into the heat. From the bench under the big
poplar she looked across at the girdling hills, blue and hot in the
still flood of noon; below her was the valley, now a sea of treetops
islanded with Old Chester roofs and chimneys; there was no gleam of
the river through the midsummer foliage. She took her watch out of the
little watch-pocket at her waist--nearly twelve! If he had got the
despatch at nine, it was surely time for an answer. Still, so many
things might have happened to delay it. He might have been late in
getting to his office; or, for that matter, Eddy Minns might be slow
about coming up the hill. Everybody was slow in Old Chester!

The empty road ran down to the foot of the hill, no trudging messenger
climbed its hot slope. Twelve.

"I'll not look at the road for five minutes," she told herself,
resolutely, and sat staring at the watch open in her hand. Five
minutes later she snapped the lid shut, and looked. Blazing, unbroken
sunshine. "It ought to have been here by this time," she thought with