He might be
drunk, he might be violent. She did not care. It was enough for her
that he should be there.
"Oh I do wish he'd come," she whispered aloud.
She had looked at her watch and seen that it was just eight o'clock
when she heard a step on the stair. She had already borrowed from
Emily a frying-pan. Quickly she put the sausages into it, placed
them on the fire and then stood over them.
The door opened. She knew who it was because she heard him start
suddenly with a little exclamation of surprise. She turned and
looked at him. Her first thought was that he seemed desperately
weary, weary with a fatigue not only physical. His whole bearing was
that of a man beaten, defeated, raging, it might be, with the
consciousness of his defeat but beyond all hope of avenging it. Her
pity for him made her tremble but, with that, she realised that the
worst thing that she could do was to show pity. What had he
expected? To find her gone? To find her still sitting defiantly
where he had left her? To see her crying, perhaps on her knees
before him, beseeching him? Anything but not this.
She could see that he was astonished and was resolved not to let her
know it.
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