When he had gazed at the affair from all points of view, and repeated to himself the same deep moral truths (such as "There's no doing nowt wi' a young woman afore she's forty") about thirty-nine times, and pitied himself from every quarter of the compass, he rose to go to bed; he did not expect to sleep. But the gas was not yet in order, and he had only one candle, which was nearly at its latter end. The ladies—Helen and Georgiana—had retired long since.
He left his little room, and was just setting forth on the adventure of discovering his bedchamber, when a bell rang in the bowels of the house. His flesh crept. It was as if—
The clock struck twelve, and shook the silent tower.
Then he collected his powers of memory and of induction, and recognised in the sound of the bell the sound of the front door bell. Some one must be at the front door. The singular and highly-disturbing phenomena of distant clanging, of thrills, and of flesh-creepings were all resolved into the simple fact that some one was at the front door.
He went back into his little room; instead of opening the front door like a man, he opened the window of the little room, and stuck out the tassel of his cap.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"It's I, Mr. Ollerenshaw," said a voice, queenly and nervous.
"Not Mrs. Prockter?" he suggested.
"Yes."
"I reckon ye'd like to come in," he said.