The doctors were not anxious about him Monday , though they said it was a pretty severe case . '' A faint , wraith-like change of expression drifted over Emily 's beautiful face and was gone in a moment . What was it -- relief ? Regret ? It would have been impossible to say . When she next spoke her vibrant voice was as perfectly melodious as usual . `` I think I will go to bed , Amelia . John will not be back until late I suppose , and I am very tired . There comes the rain . I suppose it will spoil all the flowers . They will be beaten to pieces . '' 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 XXXXX its curious slant as the house had settled , to her own room under the north-western eaves .
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