“Do you mean to say that if it were an affair of life and death she could not be called out?” Abraham asked in that voice which had sometimes seemed to Lucy to be so impressive. “She is not a prisoner!”
“I don’t know as to that,” replied the man; “you would have to see the superintendent, I suppose.”
“Then let me see the superintendent.” And at last he did succeed in seeing some one whom he so convinced of the importance of his message as to bring Lucy to the door.
“Miss Graham,” he said, when they were at the top of the stairs, and so far alone that no one else could hear him, “I want you to come out with me for half an hour.”
“I don’t think I can. They won’t let me.”
“Yes they will. I have to say something which I must say now.”
“Will not the evening do, Mr. Hall?”
“No; I must go out of town by the mail train from Paddington, and it will be too late. Get your hat and come with me for half an hour.”
Then she remembered her hat, and she snatched a glance at her poor stained dress, and she looked up at him. He was not dressed in his working clothes, and his face and hands were clean, and altogether there was a look about him of well-to-do manly tidiness which added to her feeling of shame.
“If you will go on to the house I will follow you,” she said.