But her anxiety was wasted. Neither Stephen nor Hilda greeted her, unless Hilda's careless "A new housemaid, Fetzer?" could be called a greeting. She spoke as though the matter of a new housemaid was one which concerned her only slightly.
"Yes, Mrs. Lanfair. Ellen Lewis is her name."
At last Stephen nodded absently in her direction. He wore a gray suit like the one he had worn at Ephrata. He moved and spoke more quickly and nervously, and his lower lip twitched occasionally.
"Yes, and everything is in order." Fetzer looked at Ellen, thinking sympathetically that she seemed afraid. The ways of the Lanfairs had once paralyzed her, too.
Hilda paused on the second step. She was more slender and there was a queer change in her aspect; her dress was tawdry and ill-fitting. Dr. Good would have detected from her appearance and from her moroseness and indifference a marked advance in her malady.
"You can't wait till morning!" she said lightly.
Ellen followed Fetzer who followed Hilda to her bedroom. Ellen did not look back; there would be no immediate and dramatic presentation of herself. In the bedroom she set down the bag where she was told.
Obeying with relief she heard a question.
"A little stupid is she, Fetzer? She looks stupid."
Ellen went out into the hall and back to the door which led to the service stairs. In her room she opened her books and finished her evening's task. She had power of concentration equal to her strength of purpose; besides, the event was too startling and complex to be approached at once.
An hour later, sitting up in bed with her hands clasped round her knees, she heard the door open.
Fetzer sat down on the foot of the bed. The pale moonlight was not bright enough to show the flush on her cheek, but the trembling of her body shook the bed.
"Why, Mrs. Fetzer, what ails you?" Asking the question Ellen believed that she understood. Mrs. Lanfair had spoken unkindly.
But Fetzer's thoughts were not upon Hilda.
"I'd do anything in the world for him!" she declared.
"There are some that are just like beasts and some that are all the while angels," wept Fetzer.
Ellen waited. Neither description seemed to fit Lanfair.
"If it weren't for him I'd be blind. I was shot once. My husband shot me when he was drunk. He was good-for-nothing. They gave up my eyes in the hospital, doctors and doctors examined me and gave me up, both my eyes, but he wouldn't have it. He watched me day after day, sitting sometimes for hours by me. They told me, when they took the bandage off, to look at the beautiful river." There was scorn in Fetzer's voice. "I looked at him. He was more to me than any river."