It was in accord with this
awakened sense of duty that she undressed with great care and
meticulously folded the clothes that she took off. Sometimes, but
not very often, she threw them helter-skelter about the room.
And that sense of duty was her prevailing mood when Leonora,
tall, clean-run, golden-haired, all in black, appeared in her
doorway, and told her that Edward was dying of love for her. She
knew then with her conscious mind what she had known within
herself for months--that Edward was dying--actually and
physically dying--of love for her. It seemed to her that for one
short moment her spirit could say: "Domine, nunc dimittis, . . .
Lord, now, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." She imagined
that she could cheerfully go away to Glasgow and rescue her
fallen mother.
IV
AND it seemed to her to be in tune with the mood, with the hour,
and with the woman in front of her to say that she knew Edward
was dying of love for her and that she was dying of love for
Edward. For that fact had suddenly slipped into place and become
real for her as the niched marker on a whist tablet slips round with
the pressure of your thumb. That rubber at least was made.
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