He heard her hesitate there a
minute. It was a double house: the kitchen and sitting-room at one side
of the narrow hall; at the other, Jane's chamber, and a room which she
usually kept locked. He had heard her there at night sometimes, for he
slept above it, and once or twice had seen the door open in the daytime,
and looked in. It held, he saw, better furniture than the rest of the
house: a homespun carpet of soft, grave colors, thick drab curtains, a
bedstead, one or two bookcases, filled and locked, of which Jane made as
little use, he was sure, as she could of the fowling-piece and patent
fishing-rod which he saw in one corner. There were no shams, no cheap
makeshifts in the Quaker's little house, in any part of it; but this
room was the essence of cleanness and comfort, Andy thought. He never
asked questions, however: some ingredient in his poor hodge-podge of a
brain keeping him always true to this hard test of good breeding. So
to-night, though he heard her until near eleven o'clock moving
restlessly about in this room, he hesitated until then, before he went
to speak to her.
"She's surely sick," he said, with a worried look, lighting his candle.
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