The Third Window

raining. When he looked out, the trees stood still in gr

rainy day in the country; and ghosts don't walk in the rain. If Malcolm hadn't come in the moonlight, he wouldn't come n

t, and drank his coffee and ate kedgeree and toast with not too bad an appetite. A little coal fire had been lighted in the library, and he went in there after breakfast and read the papers and wrote some letters, and the morning passe

ppose? Because I don't intend to go. When am I to se

brought with th

ired. Cicely will give you your tea and dine with

ony write like that before. He could infer from the slant of the letters that she had written in be

ly lonely all

e pale than usual; less pale, indeed, for she had a spot of colour on each cheek, but, as if her being had gathered itself together, for some emergency, about its irreducible core of flame, she showed, to his new perception o

risen on her entrance, dropped again into his seat, the capacious leather divan set at right angles to the hearth, its back to the window. Miss

if she'd been out walking in this bad weather. It was some reli

age," she said. "There

e before tea-he wouldn't mind waiting a bit; but she said, seating herself and po

d between her and Antonia. But, unasked, emphasizing to his raw consciousness his own exclusion, she said: "Antonia i

ow strength by generosity and to play into he

?" said Miss Latimer. "She

had not known at all. "

er doctor allows

ast night and i

th the even glow of its tended fire, the cheer of its humming kettle, the scented promise of its tea-table? She passed him toasted scones from the hot-water-basin and offered home-made jam. He wanted no jam, but he found himself quite hungry, absurdly so, he thought, until he remembered that h

Wyndwards suits

but quite without impertinence. "She

ore

death," Miss

isconcerted. "Well,

he hated her; hated her the more that she was not wishing to score off him as he wished to score off her. Yet he did not dislike her, if one could draw that distinction. And now he not

Malcolm's death the place oppresses her. Quite naturally; and it w

any good to leave Wyndwards," sai

did, I imagine," Bevis commented, w

at si

t, how it was with us," he sai

she might not be going to answer him. But she replied

e window, watched them. He did not quite know why this certainty should give him the sense of triumph; unless-was that it?-i

w that young women nowadays have friendships like

it was more than frien

ment. "I saw that you were in

saw that we were in l

r the intimacies he forced upon her, she took up the tea-pot and, still with t

r distaste. "I am afraid

dislike anything that

he contemplated his antagonist. "My point is that it wouldn't make her unhappy if she came away," he took up. "If she came

ips while he spoke. Then, untasted, she set it down, and then, with

said. "She loved her husband. She does not find it easy to forget him here, it is t

in an encounter all harsh, had it been unaccompanied, with the embarrassment of their antagonism. "May I have another cup, please?" There was a malicio

own, though she proceeded to fill it, it was, he noted with an amusement that almost expressed itself in a laugh-he knew that he was capable of feeling a

an in that se

I should like to know where I am with you. Do you dislike me? Are you my

uit had become too intolerable. "I do not know you. How could I be

ke me if I ma

r make her happy. Never. Never," she repeated. "You can only mean unhappiness to her. If you care

forget that we're in love with each other." He, too, had risen, but in his voice, as he opposed her, there was appeal rather than

s if, arrested by the appeal, she was willing to do justice to his me

he meditated, and then, courageously, accep

ass behind his bars and look out in passing; and he saw not only what

true to themselves

de himself a proper cup of tea. He had managed to make tea for himself and