Page:Encounters (Bowen).djvu/168

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THE SHADOWY THIRD


"How funny to lock them if they're empty."

"What did you imagine was inside?" he asked uneasily.

"Oh, nothing in particular. . . . Martin, I think I will go up to town and buy those chintzes myself. And there are other things I want."

He remembered how he had heard Her in the east room those last two months before she went, opening and shutting the drawers. It had disturbed him, working at his desk in the dining-room below, and he had come up angrily once or twice. He could hear Her scuffling to her feet at his approach, and when he entered She was always standing by the window, looking intently out. She used to say, "Yes, all right. I won't, I'm sorry, Martin," and come downstairs after him, humming. She had never seemed to have enough to do; before the child came she had been in an aimless bustle, but afterwards she did nothing, nothing at all, not even keep house for him decently. That was probably what had made her ill—that and the disappointment. All the time

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