Page:Ethan Frome (Scribners 1922).djvu/71

Rh They strained their eyes at each other through the icy darkness. Such a thing had never hap- pened before.

"Maybe she's forgotten it," Mattie said in a tremulous whisper; but both of them knew that it was not like Zeena to forget.

"It might have fallen off in to the snow," Mat- tie continued, after a pause during which they had stood intently listening.

"It must have been pushed off, then," he re- joined in the same tone. Another wild thought tore through him. What if tramps had been there—what if

Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.

He was still kneeling when his eyes, on a level with the lower panel of the door, caught a faint ray beneath it. Who could be stirring in that silent house? He heard a step on the stairs, and again for an instant the thought of tramps tore through him. Then the door opened and he saw his wife.