Rousing herself, she crossed the rays towards the door, but stopped on her way to run her hand along the quilt. The limbs that would lie under it would be snug enough, she thought, the head on the pillow would surely lie still. Stooping, she came on something soft to her foot, and started hastily aside. It was almost as if she had trodden and crushed the worn, old shoes.... But it was only the new cloth rug beside the bed. Out on the landing she paused again, feeling the evening stillness warm through all the house. There were empty rooms right and left of her, empty, yet full of secrets, as empty rooms always are. When other things went out of the rooms, they filled them for themselves. Yet, in spite of their secrets, they seemed lonely sometimes, consciously waiting, like the room she had left; but to-night they were only full of the sunny peace. She looked into them, one after the other, and shut them up again, and then out in the passage stood gazing at the doors. It was strange to live in a house with so many empty rooms. It was like living with people who never spoke, but were busily thinking all the time. A house with empty rooms could never be at its best. Something might come out of that brooding silence, such things as come from a mind for ever feeding on itself. She was sure that, when the winter nights came, she would start thinking of those empty rooms upstairs, hear voices, perhaps, and steps ... if she left them too long to think things by themselves. She would put apples in one, she determined, when the fruit was ripe; cheeses in another, when she started making cheese. There would be other things after a while to fill the rest—other things, other people, other thoughts—so that the rooms would not have time to grow lonely and queer. And at least one of them would have finished with being lonely by to-night. She found herself turning again to the room where her work was done, and only stopped herself at the handle of the door. Then she heard her husband moving in the kitchen below, and her dreamy mood fell from her and she ran down. There was carpet under her feet, she thought, as she ran. How many years since the old man had seen new carpet on those stairs?