The Definite Object by Jeffery Farnol

For three miserable days Spike had remained indoors, eating little, sleeping less, venturing abroad only at dusk to hurry back with the latest paper and, locked within his bedroom, to scan every scare head and column with eyes dilating in dreadful expectation of beholding the awful word -- MURDER.

For three interminable days Hermione, going about her many duties slow of foot and listless, had scarcely heeded him, conscious only of her own pain, the agony of longing, the yearning ache that filled her, throbbing in every heart-beat -- an ache that would not be satisfied. Thus, lost in her own new sorrow, she spoke seldom, sighed often, and sang not at all; often sitting at her sewing machine with hands strangely idle and gaze abstracted. Spike, watching furtively, had seen her eyes brim over with great, slow-falling tears; more than once he had heard her bitter weeping in the dawn. At such times he had yearned to comfort her, but between them was memory, dividing them like a wall -- the memory of a still form with arms wide-tossed and face hidden among dead leaves. And at such times Spike writhed in the grip of horror and groaned under the gnawing fangs of remorse; sometimes he prayed wild, passionate prayers, and sometimes he wetted his pillow with unavailing tears, while in his ears, like a small voice, soft and insistent, repeated over and over again, was the dread word MURDER. By day it haunted him also; it stared up at him from the white cloth of the breakfast table, forbidding him to eat; he read it on floor and walls and ceiling; he saw it in bloody characters that straggled across the very sky; wherever he turned his haggard gaze there he needs must read it.