'I just want to say good-bye to you,' said the voice.
'What!'
Hugo started, glancing round the vast room, which was in shadow except where a solitary light threw its yellow glare on the dial of the clock.
'Are you there?' asked the voice patiently once again.
'It isn't'—something prompted him to use a Christian name—'it isn't Louis?'
'Yes.'
'Where are you, then?' Hugo demanded.
'Not far off,' replied the mysterious voice in the telephone.
It was unmistakably the voice of Louis Ravengar, but apparently touched with some new quality, some quality of resigned and dignified despair. Hugo wondered where the man could be. And the sinister magic of the telephone, which brought this sad, quiet voice to him from somewhere out of the immensity of England, but which would not yield up the secret of its hiding, struck him strangely.
'Are you there?' said the voice yet again.