��Oh, you were, were you?�� he said. ��Well, what were you going to say when I did turn the door-handle?��"Where is she?""It is not altogether a pleasant subject," remarked the Doctor, with a slight shudder; "but as we want to learn all we can of the manners and customs of the people we are among, and as we are now among the Japanese, I suppose we must give some attention to hari-kari.
She did not wait to put on a shawl, but walked quickly across the drawing-room, where she had so often heard his nimble tripping approach, and across the inner hall and out into that Gothic apartment where she would surely find him. Before she got there she had only one desire left, to abase herself and be raised up again. She was short-sighted, and as she came into the outer hall, her heart for a moment leaped within her, for she thought she saw him standing in the dusky corner by the library door. Then, with a sickening reaction, she saw the phantom resolve itself into a coat and hat of her father��s hanging up{215} there, and she saw that the hall was empty, and Mr Silverdale gone. Still she would not give up; he might be standing just outside, unable quite to leave her like this, and opening the front door, she looked out on to the star-sown dusk. But certainly there was no one there.CHAPTER XXVIII."I'm sure I never noticed," frowned Mrs. Masters, "such things don't interest me. But her name was Miss Lilian Payne��"��Yes, sir. I think she��ll come and live here{45} with me,�� said he. ��She��s got work in London, but I don��t want her to live there alone.����Ah, I dare say he��ll find something he likes,�� said this dreadful old lady, observing with malicious{22} pleasure that Alice��s colour, as she would have phrased it, ��was mounting.��
FORE:He broke off abruptly. Gregg was standing with his hands behind him. He shook his head gravely.