She knew that he was doing it just for
occupation--to keep himself from thinking. He looked up when
she opened the door, his face illuminated by the light cast
upwards from the round orifices in the green candle shades.
She said:
"I didn't imagine that I should find Nancy here." She thought that
she owed that to him. He answered then:
"I don't imagine that you did imagine it." Those were the only
words he spoke that night. She went, like a lame duck, back
through the long corridors; she stumbled over the familiar tiger
skins in the dark hall. She could hardly drag one limb after the
other. In the gallery she perceived that Nancy's door was half open
and that there was a light in the girl's room. A sudden madness
possessed her, a desire for action, a thirst for self-explanation.
Their rooms all gave on to the gallery; Leonora's to the east, the
girl's next, then Edward's. The sight of those three open doors,
side by side, gaping to receive whom the chances of the black
night might bring, made Leonora shudder all over her body. She
went into Nancy's room.
The girl was sitting perfectly still in an armchair, very upright, as
she had been taught to sit at the convent.
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