Thus:-- They would sit, those two, silent and thoughtful, beside that unhappy hearth, watching the fire, and brooding over the past.

Each had that in their hearts which made them silent to one another, and each felt the horror of some great overshadowing formless calamity, which any instant might take form, and overwhelm them.

Mary would sit late, dreading the weary night, when her overstrained senses caught every sound in the distant forest; but, however late she sat, she always left Tom behind, over the fire, not taking his comfortable glass, but gloomily musing--as much changed from his old self as man could be.
She now lay always in her clothes, ready for any emergency; and one night, about a week after Lee's murder, she dreamt that her husband was in the hall, bidding her in a whisper which thrilled her heart, to come forth.

The fancy was so strong upon her, that saying aloud to herself, "The end is come!" she arose in a state little short of delirium, and went into the hall.

There was no one there, but she went to the front door, and, looking out into the profoundly black gloom of the night, said in a low voice,-- "George, George, come to me! Let me speak to you, George.