CHAPTER XVII.
BESIDE HIM ONCE AGAIN.
There are blind ways provided, the foredone Heart-weary player in this pageant world Drops out by, letting the main masque defile By the conspicuous portal.
_R.

Browning_.
What is this world?
What asken men to have?
Now with his love--now in his cold grave-- Alone, withouten any companie! _Chaucer_.
The tall old clock, which stood by the dining-room door, had struck two, and been silent many minutes, before Richard came to me.

I had spent those dreadful hours in feverish restlessness: my room seemed suffocating to me.

I had walked about, had put away my trinkets, I had changed my dress, and put on a white one which I had worn in the morning, and had tried to braid my hair.
The quieting of the house, it seemed, would never come.

It was twelve o'clock before any one came up-stairs.