Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/267

 JACK O' LANTERN.

Evening closed in; Judith had been left entirely to herself. She sat in the window, looking out into the mist and watching- the failing of the light. Sometimes she opened the casement and allowed the vapor to blow in like cold steam, then became chilled, shivered, and closed it again The wind, was rising- and piped about the house, piped at her window. Judith, sitting there, tried with her hand to find the crevice through which the blast drove, and then amused herself with playing with her finger-tops on the opening's and regulating the whistle so as to form a tune. She heard frequently Coppinger's voice in conversation, sometimes in the hall, sometimes in the court-yard, but could not catch what was spoken. She listened, with childish curiosity, to the voice that was now that of her lord and husband, and endeavored to riddle out of it some answer to her questions as to what sort of a master he would prove. She could not comprehend him. She had heard stories told of him that made her deem him the worst of men, remorseless and regardless of others, yet toward her he had proved gentle and considerate. What, for instance, could be more delicate and thoughtful than his behavior to her at this very time? Feeling that she had married him with reluctance, he had kept away from her and suffered her to recover her composure without affording her additional struggle. A reaction after the strain on her nerves set in; the step she had dreaded had been taken, and she was the wife of the man she feared and did not love. The suspense of expectation was exchanged for the calmer grief of retrospect.

The fog all day had been white as wool, and she had noticed how parcels of vapor had been caught and entangled in the thorn bushes as the fog swept by, very much as sheep left flocks of their fleece in the bushes