Will you look at your watch?
Have we waited half an hour yet ?" My impatience had misled me.

The ordeal of the half-hour was not yet at an end.
Slowly and more slowly the heavy minutes followed each other, and still there were no signs of my husband's return.

We tried to continue our conversation, and failed.

Nothing was audible; no sounds but the ordinary sounds of the street disturbed the dreadful silence.

Try as I might to repel it, there was one foreboding thought that pressed closer and closer on my mind as the interval of waiting wore its weary way on.
I shuddered as I asked myself if our married life had come to an end--if Eustace had really left me.
The Major saw what Benjamin's slower perception had not yet discovered--that my fortitude was beginning to sink under the unrelieved oppression of suspense.
"Come!" he said.