How still it was outside the house with the snow falling! How still
within! She began to hear the ticking of the tranquil old clock under
the stairway out in the hall--always tranquil, always tranquil. And
then she began to listen to the disordered strokes of her own
heart--that red Clock in the body's Tower whose beats are sent outward
along the streets and alleys of the blood; whose law it is to be
alternately wound too fast by the fingers of Joy, too slow by the
fingers of Sorrow; and whose fate, if it once run down, never
afterwards either by Joy or Sorrow to be made to run again.
At last she could hear the distant door of his study open and close
and his steps advance along the hall. With what a splendid swing and
tramp he brought himself toward her!--with what self-unconsciousness
and virile strength in his feet! His steps entered and crossed his
bedroom, entered and crossed her bedroom; and then he stood there
before her in the parlor doorway, a few yards off--stopped and
regarded her intently, smiling.
In a moment she realized what had delayed him. When he had gone away
with the step-ladder, he had on a well-worn suit in which, behind
locked doors, he had been working all the afternoon at the decorations
of the Tree.
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