'I don't want help, I can undress
myself. As if Susan Barley couldn't do that for herself! and you may
shut your door, I sha'n't have any frights to-night, I'm so tired out.'
'Another kiss,' Chloe said tenderly.
'Yes, take it'--the duchess leaned her cheek--'but I'm so tired I don't
know what I'm doing.'
'It will not be on your conscience,' Chloe answered, kissing her warmly.
Will those words she withdrew, and the duchess closed the door. She ran
a bolt in it immediately.
'I'm too tired to know anything I'm doing,' she said to herself, and
stood with shut eyes to hug certain thoughts which set her bosom heaving.
There was the bed, there was the clock. She had the option of lying down
and floating quietly into the day, all peril past. It seemed sweet for a
minute. But it soon seemed an old, a worn, an end-of-autumn life, chill,
without aim, like a something that was hungry and toothless. The bed
proposing innocent sleep repelled her and drove her to the clock. The
clock was awful: the hand at the hour, the finger following the minute,
commanded her to stir actively, and drove her to gentle meditations on
the bed. She lay down dressed, after setting her light beside the clock,
that she might see it at will, and considering it necessary for the bed
to appear to have been lain on. Considering also that she ought to be
heard moving about in the process of undressing, she rose from the bed
to make sure of her reading of the guilty clock.
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