She left the lamp burning up-stairs, thinking suddenly that it would be well to have the house present the appearance of being well inhabited.  She took her hat and coat and her little travelling-bag, and she went back to the place by the parlor window and stared out at the lawn again.  It was growing very late.  Soon it would be time for her to watch for the last train.  It really seemed to the girl an incredible supposition of disaster that that train could pass by and her father not appear, and that in the face of her morbid and pessimistic conclusions.  She was a mass of inconsistencies, of incoherencies.  She at once despaired and hoped with a hope that was conviction.  At last, when she saw by the clock that it only wanted a few minutes before the time when the last train was due, her spirits arose as if winged.  She even went out in the kitchen and examined the wretched dinner to make sure it was still hot.  She put more coal on the range.  The house was growing very cold, and she knew that the furnace fire needed attention, but she absolutely dared not go down cellar alone at that time.  They had very little coal, also, and had been in the habit of letting the furnace fire die down at night.  She put on her coat when she returned from the kitchen, and sat again by the window.  She felt now an absolute certainty that her father would arrive on this train.  She felt that it was monstrous to assume that her father would not come home all night and leave her alone with no message.  She felt even quite radiantly happy sitting there.  She said to herself what a little goose she had been.  Even a noise made by some coal falling in the kitchen-range failed to startle her.  She now hoped that the train would not be late, and it was, in fact, very nearly on time.  Then she watched for her father with not the slightest doubt that he would come.  It had come to that pass that her credulity as to disaster had failed her.  It was simply out of her power to credit the possibility of his not coming on this train when he had sent no telegram.  She knew that there would be no carriage at the station at that hour, unless he had telegraphed for one from New York, and she questioned, in the state of their finances, if he would do that.  She was therefore sure of seeing his figure appear, coming, with the stately stride which she knew so well, into view on the road below the lawn.

She allowed twenty-five minutes for his appearance after she had seen the train pass.  She knew nothing could detain him in the village at that time of night, and she was sure he would come within that time.  She looked at the dining-room clock and found that she had, if she allowed that twenty-five minutes, just fifteen minutes to wait.  She sat shrugged up in her little fur-trimmed coat, for the house was growing very cold, and stared intently at the pale glimmer of the road.  After the twenty-five minutes had passed, she went out in the dining-room and looked at the clock.  The time was more than passed; there was no doubt.  Her father had not come.  The panic seized her.