Page:Alden - Making Fate.djvu/12

2 been listened to by this woman as though her hope of life depended on her finding the footstep she waited for. Occasionally there had been one so like what she sought, that she held her breath for it to draw near, and pass; all the while her swift-beating heart telling her that if it had been the footstep she would have known it, oh, as far away as the sound could reach her!

Yet still she waited for each new one in the same breathless, hopeful way. As the hours waned, the passers by grew less and less frequent, until now the most belated traveler seemed to have reached home; and she was still waiting!

She turned from the window once more, and the odor of coffee reached her; it seemed to be hateful to her; she went swiftly and closed the door which led from the dining-room into the little kitchen, leaving the tiny coffee-pot to its fate.

They were pretty rooms, sitting and dining-room, with folding doors between. The doors were rolled back out of sight, and the portieres so looped as to give a view of a dining-table daintily laid for two people, who must both have had very refined tastes. The napery was fine and fresh, the china delicate and the silver sterling. The Edmonds family had lived nearly always in a larger house than this; their table had been drawn out, often full length, and was wont to be surrounded by merry, happy people.

Time and change had left only two, and the table had to be closed to its smallest; but there