noon
He worked silently , with fierce energy , the rest of the morning . He had not heard before of Lucina 's ill health ; she had not been to church the Sunday previous , but he had thought of nothing serious from that . Now the dreadful possibility came to him -- suppose she should die and leave his world entirely , of what avail would all his toil be then ? When he went home that noon he ate his dinner hastily , then , on his way back to the shop , left the road , crossed into a field , and sat down in the wide solitude , on a rock humping out of the dun roll of sere grass-land . Always , in his stresses of spirit , Jerome sought instinctively some closet which he had made of the free fastnesses of nature . The day was very dull and cold ; snow threatened , should the weather moderate . Overhead was a suspended drift of gray clouds .