But Rosy was talking, not because she did not want to sit still and think, but because she did not want Betty to do so.  And all the time she was trying to thrust away the thought growing in her mind.

They spent the evening together in the library, and Betty read aloud.  She read a long time—­until quite late.  She wished to tire herself as well as to force herself to stop listening.

When they said good-night to each other Rosy clung to her as desperately as she had clung on the night after her arrival.  She kissed her again and again, and then hung her head and excused herself.

“Forgive me for being—­nervous.  I’m ashamed of myself,” she said.  “Perhaps in time I shall get over being a coward.”

But she said nothing of the fact that she was not a coward for herself, but through a slowly formulating and struggled—­against fear, which chilled her very heart, and which she could best cover by a pretence of being a poltroon.

She could not sleep when she went to bed.  The night seemed crowded with strange, terrified thoughts.  They were all of Betty, though sometimes she thought of her father’s coming, of her mother in New York, and of Betty’s steady working throughout the day.  Sometimes she cried, twisting her hands together, and sometimes she dropped into a feverish sleep, and dreamed that she was watching Betty’s face, yet was afraid to look at it.

She awakened suddenly from one of these dreams, and sat upright in bed to find the dawn breaking.  She rose and threw on a dressing-gown, and went to her sister’s room because she could not bear to stay away.

The door was not locked, and she pushed it open gently.  One of the windows had its blind drawn up, and looked like a patch of dull grey.  Betty was standing upright near it.  She was in her night-gown, and a long black plait of hair hung over one shoulder heavily.  She looked all black and white in strong contrast.  The grey light set her forth as a tall ghost.

Lady Anstruthers slid forward, feeling a tightness in her chest.

“The dawn wakened me too,” she said.

“I have been waiting to see it come,” answered Betty.  “It is going to be a dull, dreary day.”

CHAPTER XLVII

“I have no word or look to remember”

It was a dull and dreary day, as Betty had foreseen it would be.  Heavy rain clouds hung and threatened, and the atmosphere was damp and chill.  It was one of those days of the English autumn which speak only of the end of things, bereaving one of the power to remember next year’s spring and summer, which, after all, must surely come.  Sky is grey, trees are grey, dead leaves lie damp beneath the feet, sunlight and birds seem forgotten things.  All that has been sad and to be regretted or feared hangs heavy in the air and sways all thought.  In the passing of these hours there is no hope anywhere.  Betty appeared at breakfast in short dress and close hat.  She wore thick little boots, as if for walking.