Janet entered the room.  She sat down on the sofa and took her mother’s hand in hers.  And Hannah submitted passively.  Janet could not speak.  A minute might have passed, and the silence, which neither had broken, acquired an intensity that to Janet became unbearable.  Never had the room been so still!  Her glance, raised instinctively to the face of the picture-clock, saw the hands pointing to ten.  Every Monday morning, as far back as she could recall, her father had wound it before going to work—­and to-day he had forgotten.  Getting up, she opened the glass door, and stood trying to estimate the hour:  it must be, she thought, about six.  She set the hands, took the key from the nail above the shelf, wound up the weight, and started the pendulum.  And the sound of familiar ticking was a relief, releasing at last her inhibited powers of speech.

“Mother,” she said, “I’ll get some supper for you.”

On Hannah, these simple words had a seemingly magical effect.  Habit reasserted itself.  She started, and rose almost briskly.

“No you won’t,” she said, “I’ll get it.  I’d ought to have thought of it before.  You must be tired and hungry.”

Her voice was odd and thin.  Janet hesitated a moment, and ceded.

“Well, I’ll set the dishes on the table, anyway.”

Janet had sought refuge, wistfully, in the commonplace.  And when the meal was ready she strove to eat, though food had become repulsive.

“You must take something, mother,” she said.

“I don’t feel as if I ever wanted to eat anything again,” she replied.

“I know,” said Janet, “but you’ve got to.”  And she put some of the cold meat, left over from Sunday’s dinner, on Hannah’s plate.  Hannah took up a fork, and laid it down again.  Suddenly she said:—­“You saw Lise?”

“Yes,” said Janet.

“Where is she?”

“In a house—­in Boston.”

“One of—­those houses?”

“I—­I don’t know,” said Janet.  “I think so.”

“You went there?”

“Mr. Tiernan went with me.”

“She wouldn’t come home?”

“Not—­not just now, mother.”

“You left her there, in that place?  You didn’t make her come home?”

The sudden vehemence of this question, the shrill note of reproach in Hannah’s voice that revealed, even more than the terrible inertia from which she had emerged, the extent of her suffering, for the instant left Janet utterly dismayed.  “Oh mother!” she exclaimed.  “I tried—­I—­I couldn’t.”

Hannah pushed back her chair.

“I’ll go to her, I’ll make her come.  She’s disgraced us, but I’ll make her.  Where is she?  Where is the house?”

Janet, terrified, seized her mother’s arm.  Then she said:—­“Lise isn’t there any more—­she’s gone away.”

“Away and you let her go away?  You let your sister go away and be a—­a woman of the town?  You never loved her—­you never had any pity for her.”