She was
sitting now, or rather crouching down, in a large cushioned chair,
her face white and still and her eyes fixed in a kind of frightened
stare.
Time passed, but she remained so motionless that but for her
wide-open eyes you would have thought her asleep or dead.
No one intruded upon her during the brief afternoon; and when
darkness shut in, she was still sitting where she had dropped down
nerveless from mental pain. After it grew dark Mrs. Abercrombie
arose, lighted the gas and drew the window curtains. She then moved
about the room putting things in order. Next she changed her dress
and gave some careful attention to her personal appearance. The cold
pallor which had been on her face all the afternoon gave way to a
faint tinge of color, her eyes lost their stony fixedness and became
restless and alert. But the trouble did not go out of her face or
eyes; it was only more active in expression, more eager and
expectant.
After all the changes in her toilette had been made, Mrs.
Abercrombie sat down again, waiting and listening. It was the
general's usual time to come home from headquarters. How would he
come? or would he come at all? These were the questions that
agitated her soul. The sad, troubled humiliating, suffering past,
how its records of sorrow and shame and fear kept unrolling
themselves before her eyes! There was little if anything in these
records to give hope or comfort.
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