In the dark hall Emily paused for a moment and opened the front door to be cut in the face with a whip-like dash of rain . She peered out into the thickly gathering gloom . Beyond , in the garden , she saw the asters tossed about , phantom-like . The wind around the many-cornered old farmhouse was full of wails and sobs . The clock in the sitting-room struck eight . Emily shivered and shut the door . She remembered that she had been married at eight o'clock that very morning seven years ago . She thought she could see herself coming down the stairs in her white dress with her bouquet of asters . For a moment she was glad that those mocking flowers in the garden would be all beaten to death before morning by the lash of wind and rain . Then she recovered her mental poise and put the hateful memories away from her as she went steadily up the narrow stairs and along the hall with its curious slant as the house had settled , to her own room under the north-western eaves . When she had put out her light and gone to bed she found that she could not sleep . She pretended to believe that it was the noise of the storm that kept her awake . Not even to herself would Emily confess that she was waiting and listening nervously for John 's return home . That would have been to admit a weakness , and Emily Fair , like Amelia , despised weakness . Every few minutes a gust of wind smote the house , with a roar as of a wild beast , and bombarded Emily 's window with a volley of rattling drops . In the silences that came between the gusts she heard the soft , steady pouring of the rain on the garden paths below , mingled with a faint murmur that came up from the creek beyond the barns where the pine boughs were thrashing in the storm . Emily suddenly thought of a weird story she had once read years before and long forgotten -- a story of a soul that went out in a night of storm and blackness and lost its way between earth and heaven . She shuddered and drew the counterpane over her face . `` Of all things I hate a fall storm most , '' she muttered . `` It frightens me . ''
Somewhat to her surprise -- for even her thoughts were generally well XXXXX the control of her unbending will -- she could not help thinking of Stephen -- thinking of him not tenderly or remorsefully , but impersonally , as of a man who counted for nothing in her life .
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