"Who can that be?" wondered Mrs. Norton. "It's after half-past nine."
"Very likely it's Mr. Burden," said I; the first moderately intelligent remark I'd made since we were left together.
She agreed with me that this was probable; but when fifteen, twenty, forty minutes passed by the clock, and Dick did not appear, she changed her mind. It must have been someone to see Sir Lionel, she thought, on business that wouldn't wait. I was not convinced of this, and longed for her to ring and ask a footman who had come; but I couldn't very well suggest it.
The house did sound so silent, that my ears rang, as they do when one listens to a shell!
Ten; ten-fifteen; ten-thirty; a Louis Quatorze clock chimed. Hardly had it got the last two strokes out of its mouth, when Sir Lionel opened the door. He was pale, in that frightening way that tanned skins do turn pale, and he didn't seem to see his sister. He looked straight past her at me, and his eyes shone.
"I want very much to speak to you," he said. His voice shook ever so slightly, as if he were going into a battle where he knew he would be killed, and felt solemn about it, but otherwise was rather pleased than not.
Then I knew my time had come. I almost looked for the steps of the guillotine, but I was suddenly too blind to see them if they had been under my nose.
"Very well," I said, and got up from my chair.
"Oh," exclaimed Emily, "don't go. If you have anything to say to Ellaline, which you'd like to say to her alone, let me go. I am getting sleepy, and was just thinking about bed. Perhaps I might say good-night to you both?"
"Good-night, dear," answered Sir Lionel. I had never heard him call her that before.