88. CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
WAITING.
The woman Abel had left sat quivering and appalled. Every
sound started her; every moment she heard him coming.
Rocking to and fro in the lonely room, she dropped into sudden
sleep—saw him—started up—cried, “How could you stay
so?” then sat broad awake, and knew that she had dozed but
for a moment, and that she was alone.
[ILLUSTRATION]
Waiting.
[Description: 538EAF. Page 492. In-line Illustration. Image of a woman looking out of a door. She is holding the door open with one hand and has a candle in the other. Her hair has come slightly undone.]
“Abel, Abel!” she moaned, in yearning agony. “But he
kissed me before he went,” she thought, wildly—“he kissed
me—he kissed me!”
Lulled for a moment by the remembrance, she sank into another
brief nap—saw him as she had seen him in his gallant
days, and heard him say, I love you. “How could you stay
so?” she cried, dreaming—started—sprang up erect, with her
head turned in intense listening. There was a sound this
time; yes, across the river she heard the solemn city bells
strike three.
Wearily pacing the room—stealthily, that she might make
no noise—walking the hours away, the lonely woman waited
for her lover. The winter wind rose and wailed about the
windows and moaned in the chimney, and in long, shrieking
sobs died away.
“Abel! Abel!” she whispered, and started at the strangeness
of her voice. She opened the window softly and looked
out. The night was cold and calm again, and the keen stars
twinkled. She saw nothing—she heard no sound.
She closed it again, and paced the room. There were no
tears in her eyes; but they were wide open, startled, despairing.
For the first time in her terrible life she had loved.
“But he kissed me before he went,” she said, pleadingly, to
herself; “he kissed me—he kissed me!”
She said it when the solemn city bells struck three. She
said it when the first dim light of dawn stole into the chamber.
And when the full day broke, and she heard the earliest
footfalls in the street, her heart clung to it as the only memory
left to her of all her life:
“He kissed me! he kissed me!”
