knocked on the door of Belle's room, but got no
answer. Conjecturing that she had gone out on an errand, Kate sat down
in a rocking chair and, taking a newspaper from the table, tried to
read.

Her thoughts soon blurred the print. She read on only to think of what
had brought her so irresistibly to town and to wonder what she should
hear now that she had come.

After some struggle to concentrate, she tossed the paper aside to ask
herself why Belle did not return, and, being tense, began without
realizing it, to rock softly. Her eyes naturally turned to the
familiar lamp. Its somber paper shade threw the light in a circle on
the table, leaving the room in the heavy shadows of its figured
pattern. Kate became all at once conscious of the utter silence, and
impatient for Belle's return, got up and walked through the dark hall
toward the front door.

Passing the living-room portieres, she pushed open the screen door and
stepped out on the porch. There she stood for a moment at the top of
the steps looking at the stars. Lights here and there burned in
neighboring cottage windows. No wind stirred. The street and the town
were as still as the night. After some minutes, Kate descended the
steps, opened the gate, leaving it to close with a click behind her,
and walked to the corner of Main Street. It looked dark. The stores
were closed. From the saloon windows spotty lights shot at intervals
across the upper street, but these only made the darkened store fronts
blacker and revealed the nakedness and desertion of the street itself.
Not a man, much less a woman, could she see anywhere moving.

Either the silence, or the night, or her long wait changed her
impatience into a feeling of loneliness. She turned back toward the
cottage gate. She had not noticed before how very dark the side street
was. Reaching the gate she hesitated, pushed it open and then stopped,
conscious of a curious repugnance to entering the house.

Her feeling refused to explain itself. Through the screen she could
see the lamp still burning on the dining-room table. Things appeared
just as she had left them, yet she did not want to go in. But,
dismissing the qualm, she walked up the steps, crossed the narrow
porch, opened the screen door and, stepping inside, closed it after her.

This time that she passed the living-room she noticed the portieres
were partly open. Both times she had passed before, she felt sure,
they had been closed