Waldo lifted Em from her saddle, and for a moment she leaned her head on
his shoulder and clung to him.

"You are very tired," he said, as he walked with her to the door; "let
me go in and light a candle for you."

"No, thank you; it is all right," she said. "Good night, Waldo, dear."

But when she went in she sat long alone in the dark.

Chapter 2.VII. Waldo Goes Out to Taste Life, and Em Stays At Home and
Tastes It.

At nine o'clock in the evening, packing his bundles for the next
morning's start, Waldo looked up, and was surprised to see Em's yellow
head peeping in at his door. It was many a month since she had been
there. She said she had made him sandwiches for his journey, and she
stayed a while to help him put his goods into the saddlebags.

"You can leave the old things lying about," she said; "I will lock the
room, and keep it waiting for you to come back some day."

To come back some day! Would the bird ever return to its cage? But he
thanked her. When she went away he stood on the doorstep holding the
candle till she had almost reached the house. But Em was that evening
in no hurry to enter, and, instead of going in at the back door, walked
with lagging footsteps round the low brick wall that ran before the
house. Opposite the open window of the parlour she stopped. The little
room, kept carefully closed in Tant Sannie's time, was well lighted by a
paraffin lamp; books and work lay strewn about it, and it wore a
bright, habitable aspect. Beside the lamp at the table in the corner sat
Lyndall, the open letters and papers of the day's post lying scattered
before her, while she perused the columns of a newspaper. At the centre
table, with his arms folded on an open paper, which there was not light
enough to read, sat Gregory. He was looking at her. The light from the
open window fell on Em's little face under its white kapje as she looked
in, but no one glanced that way.

"Go and fetch me a glass of water!" Lyndall said, at last.

Gregory went out to find it; when he put it down at her side she merely
moved her head in recognition, and he went back to his seat and his old
occupation. Then Em moved slowly away from the window, and through it
came in spotted, hard-winged insects, to play round the lamp, till, one
by one, they stuck to its glass, and fell to the foot dead.

Ten o'clock struck. Then Lyndall rose, gathered up her papers and
letters, and wished Gregory good night. Some time after Em e