VIII
That first occasion!
She had long resisted the impulse to send for him. How long? She did not know; every day had been a week, since the wish first consciously awoke in her. What had deterred her? she did not know that either; perhaps a superstitious shrinking, an instinct that the amusement might turn to a wild beast of danger as soon as she exchanged the tractable wraith of her own evoking for a human creature of independent intentions, of will and muscle. So she had prolonged the period of evasion, knowing perfectly well that at the end of the road she was descending with such restrained, deliberate footsteps, stood the figure of Silas, with folded arms, waiting for her. Sometimes she had wondered whether the whole thing were not the creation of her fancy. The matter had grown in her mind, since she had first heard from her husband the story of the inquest, until the blind man now accompanied every moment of her day; and so strong was this fateful companionship, that she believed Silas, down in the village, must be living in equivalent consciousness of her nearness and the rapid convergence of their lives. Still she attempted to persuade herself that her own idle mind was alone responsible; sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with a shrug, she had tried to dismiss the too persistent figure.
She had not believed her own lips when she heard them giving the order to fetch Silas Dene.