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Rh had been despatched, Wyant had stolen down to her with his hourly report—“no change”—and she was waiting in the library for the Gaineses.

Carriage-wheels on the gravel: they were there at last. Justine started up and went into the hall. As she passed out of the library the outer door opened, and the gusty night swooped in—as, at the same hour the day before, it had swooped in ahead of the dreadful procession—preceding now the carriageful of Hanaford relations: Mr. Gaines, red-glazed, brief and interrogatory; Westy, small, nervous, ill at ease with his grief; and Mrs. Gaines, supreme in the possession of a consolatory yet funereal manner, and sinking on Justine’s breast with the solemn whisper: “Have you sent for the clergyman?”

XXVII

HE house was empty again.

A week had passed since Bessy’s accident, and friends and relations had dispersed. The household had fallen into its routine, the routine of sickness and silence, and once more the perfectly-adjusted machine was working on steadily, inexorably, like a natural law.…

So at least it seemed to Justine’s nerves, intolerably stretched, at times, on the rack of solitude, of suspense, [ 396 ]