noon
Thus perhaps an hour passed , with only a sound of footsteps on the gravel of the driveway , now and then , and a low murmur of voices in the rear of the house where people came to ask after Crailey ; and when the door of the room where he lay was opened , the four watchers started as at a loud explosion . It was Mrs. Bareaud and the old doctor , and they closed the door again , softly , and came in to the others . They had left Crailey alone with Fanchon and Tom Vanrevel , the two who loved him best . The warm day beyond the windows became like Sunday , no voices sounded from without in the noon hush , though sometimes a little group of people would gather across the street to eye the house curiously and nod and whisper . The strong , blue shadows of the veranda pillars stole slowly across the white floor of the porch in a lessening slant , and finally lay all in a line , as the tall clock in a corner of the library asthmatically coughed the hour of noon . In this jarring discordance there was something frightful to Miss Betty . She rose abruptly , and , imperiously waving back Mrs. Tanberry , who would have detained her -- for there was in her face and manner the incipient wildness of control overstrained to the breaking-point -- she went hurriedly out of the room and out of the house , to the old bench in the garden .