The tall clock showed that it was not yet ten.

She had brought a book with her, and she drew it upon her knee; but it lay unopened.
A fretting, gusty wind beat against the window, with occasional rushes of rain.

Marcella shivered, though she had built up the fire, and put on her cloak.
A few distant sounds from the village street round the corner, the chiming of the church clock, the crackling of the fire close beside her--she heard everything there was to hear, with unusual sharpness of ear, and imagined more.
All at once restlessness, or some undefined impression, made her look round her.

She saw that the scanty baize curtain was only half-drawn across one of the windows, and she got up to close it.

Fresh from the light of the lamp, she stared through the panes into the night without at first seeing anything.