And then, as her anxiety increased with increasing thought, there returned upon her mind some incidents of her late intercourse with him, which she had heeded but little at the time. The look of his face--what had there been about his face which seemed different from its appearance as of yore? Was it not thinner, less rich in hue, less like that of ripe autumn's brother to whom she had formerly compared him? And his voice; she had distinctly noticed a change in tone. And his gait; surely it had been feebler, stiffer, more like the gait of a weary man. That slight occasional noise she had heard in the day, and attributed to squirrels, it might have been his cough after all.
Thus conviction took root in her perturbed mind that Winterborne was ill, or had been so, and that he had carefully concealed his condition from her that she might have no scruples about accepting a hospitality which by the nature of the case expelled her entertainer.
"My own, own, true l---, my dear kind friend!" she cried to herself. "Oh, it shall not be--it shall not be!"
She hastily wrapped herself up, and obtained a light, with which she entered the adjoining room, the cot possessing only one floor.
Setting down the candle on the table here, she went to the door with the key in her hand, and placed it in the lock. Before turning it she paused, her fingers still clutching it; and pressing her other hand to her forehead, she fell into agitating thought.
A tattoo on the window, caused by the tree-droppings blowing against it, brought her indecision to a close. She turned the key and opened the door.
The darkness was intense, seeming to touch her pupils like a substance. She only now became aware how heavy the rainfall had been and was; the dripping of the eaves splashed like a fountain.
She stood listening with parted lips, and holding the door in one hand, till her eyes, growing accustomed to the obscurity, discerned the wild brandishing of their boughs by the adjoining trees. At last she cried loudly with an effort, "Giles! you may come in!"
There was no immediate answer to her cry, and overpowered by her own temerity, Grace retreated quickly, shut the door, and stood looking on the floor. But it was not for long. She again lifted the latch, and with far more determination than at first.
"Giles, Giles!" she cried, with the full strength of her voice, and without any of the shamefacedness that had characterized her first cry. "Oh, come in--come in! Where are you? I have been wicked. I have thought too much of myself! Do you hear? I don't want to keep you out any longer. I cannot bear that you should suffer so. Gi-i-iles!"
A reply! It was a reply! Through the darkness and wind a voice reached her, floating upon the weather as though a part of it.
"Here I am--all right. Don't trouble about me."
"Don't you want to come in? Are you not ill? I don't mind what they say, or what they think any more."
"I am all right," he repeated. "It is not necessary for me to come. Good-night! good-night!"
Grace sighed, turned and shut the door slowly. Could she have been mistaken about his health? Perhaps, after all, she had perceived a change in him because she had not seen him for so long. Time sometimes did his ageing work in jerks, as she knew.
Well, she had done all she could. He would not come in. She retired to rest again.