"Why is he still doing that?" Martha Thorne asked, her voice much lower than usual. Her voice was no longer shrill like a cracked whistle; instead, it trembled with suffocating unease. Her eyes were fixed on the figure of the man in their front yard.
Clara Thorne stopped the clinking of her spoon against the edge of her porcelain cup. "Doing what, Mother?"
"Sweeping, Clara! He's sweeping the yard like... like a common servant!" Martha took a step back from behind the silk curtains, as if standing too close would allow Ethan to suck away the entire Thorne family's dignity with a single sweep of his broom. "After what he displayed in the ballroom that night, why would he still touch leaf litter?"
"Maybe because he feels the yard actually needs cleaning," Clara replied softly, though she h
