"I wish I hadn't put the stone up," she thought.

"If I hadn't, mebbe he'd gone in an' waited." She opened the door, and the gloom of the house, deeper than the gloom of the night, appeared.

"You wait here a minute," she said to Charlotte, "an' I'll go in an' light a candle." Charlotte waited, leaning against the door-post.

There was a flicker of fire within.

Then Sylvia held the flaring candle towards her.
"Come in," she said; "the candle's lit." There was a bed of coals on the hearth in the best room; Sylvia had made a fire there before going over to her sister's, but it had burned low.