Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/173

 Without a moment's hesitation she got out of bed, put on a dressing-gown and slippers, and opening her door quietly, paused a moment at the head of the stairs before going down. Without doubt it was a voice, and only one. The fear that a more timid woman would have felt in the first uncertainty of waking came to her now with the conviction that this was no thief, no stranger, but her ten years' friend, speaking with a passionate earnestness that terrified her; appealing—to whom?—with a sadness, a despair, that wrung her heart.

She slipped like a shadow down the stair, and crouching on the lowest step, she listened breathlessly for a moment. Ah, yes! It was to her he was talking! Her own name, in his strange, sweet, French handling of it, came to her through the half-open door. She looked through the warped and widened crack at the side, where the light streamed through, unconscious of the time, the place, even