When she next spoke her vibrant voice was as perfectly melodious as usual . `` I think I will go to bed , Amelia . John will not be back until late I suppose , and I am very tired . There comes the rain . I suppose it will spoil all the flowers . They will be beaten to pieces . '' In the dark hall Emily paused for a moment and opened the front door to be cut in the face with a whip-like dash of rain . She peered out into the thickly gathering gloom . Beyond , in the garden , she saw the asters tossed about , phantom-like . The wind around the many-cornered old farmhouse was full of wails and sobs . The clock in the sitting-room struck eight . Emily shivered and shut the door . She remembered that she had been married at eight o'clock that very morning seven years ago . She thought she could see herself coming down the stairs in her white dress with her bouquet of asters . For a moment she was glad that those mocking flowers in the garden would be all beaten to death before morning by the lash of wind and rain . Then she recovered her mental poise and put the hateful memories away from her as she went steadily up the narrow stairs and along the hall with its curious slant as the house had settled , to her own room under the north-western eaves . When she had put out her light and gone to bed she found that she could not sleep . She pretended to believe that it was the noise of the storm that kept her awake . Not even to herself would Emily confess that she was waiting and listening nervously for John 's return home . That would have been to admit a weakness , and Emily Fair , like Amelia , despised weakness .
Every few minutes a gust of wind smote the house , with a roar as of a wild beast , and bombarded XXXXX 's window with a volley of rattling drops .
Amelia Emily Fair John eaves flowers house morning pieces storm