This punctuation mark appeared quite a lot in the maid's narrative. The loss of her Lady was unbearable to her. Her whole world used to revolve around her Lady. And a frequency comparison of '...' in this and other short stories of Katherine would probably show the maid's awkwardness in her monologue.

The watch is a recurring motif in this story. And time after time the 'thin', 'butter-yellow' aspects of the watch were underscored. And here Katherine demonstrated a peculiar use of the token '----' , maybe she used it in consistence with her other stories such as The Garden Party.