door. But Mabel hardly noticed it; again she was looking towards the window.
"I shall come back in half-an-hour," said Sister Anne.
Then her eyes caught a square of white upon the centre table. "Ah! that letter!" she said.
"Yes," said the girl absently. "Please take it."
The nurse took it up, glanced at the address, and again at Mabel. Still she hesitated.
"In half-an-hour," she repeated. "There is no hurry at all. It doesn't take five minutes.... Good-bye, my dear."
But Mabel was still looking out of the window, and made no answer.
III
Mabel stood perfectly still until she heard the locking of the door and the withdrawal of the key. Then once more she went to the window and clasped the sill.
From where she stood there was visible to her first the courtyard beneath, with its lawn in the centre, and a couple of trees growing there—all plain in the brilliant light that now streamed from her window, and secondly, above the roofs, a tremendous pall of ruddy black. It was the more terrible from the contrast. Earth, it seemed, was capable of light; heaven had failed.
It appeared, too, that there was a curious stillness. The house was, usually, quiet enough at this hour: the inhabitants of that place were in no mood for bustle: but now it was more than quiet; it was deathly still: it was such a hush as precedes the sudden crash of the sky's artillery.
