There was so little of excitement or mystery in their manner that the servant, who returned to light the gas, never knew that the ruin and bankruptcy of the house was being told before her, or that its mistress was planning her secret flight.
"Good afternoon; I will see you to-morrow then," said Poindexter, raising his eyes to hers as the servant opened the door for him.
"Good afternoon," repeated Mrs.Tucker quietly answering his look.

"You need not light the gas in my room, Mary," she continued in the same tone of voice as the door closed upon him; "I shall lie down for a few moments, and then I may run over to the Robinsons for the evening." She regained her room composedly.

The longing desire to bury her head in her pillow and "think out" her position had gone.

She did not apostrophize her fate, she did not weep; few real women do in the access of calamity, or when there is anything else to be done.

She felt that she knew it all; she believed she had sounded the profoundest depths of the disaster, and seemed already so old in her experience that she almost fancied she had been prepared for it.