‘It’s very late.’
‘He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours ago. But if he has gone to bed, I’ll put a paper in his letter-box. I am expected.’
The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though rather doubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and fast in the right direction, he seemed satisfied.
The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly descended nearer to the floor outside the outer door of the chambers. The doors of the rooms within, appeared to be standing open. There were rays of candlelight from one of them, and there was the sound of a footstep going about. There were two voices. The words they uttered were not distinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In a few moments the voices were silent, and there was no sound of footstep, and the inner light went out. If Lightwood could have seen the face which kept him awake, staring and listening in the darkness outside the door as he spoke of it, he might have been less disposed to sleep, through the remainder of the night.
‘Not there,’ said Bradley; ‘but she might have been.’ The head arose to its former height from the ground, floated down the stair-case again, and passed on to the gate. A man was standing there, in parley with the watchman.
‘Oh!’ said the watchman. ‘Here he is!’
Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from the watchman to the man.
‘This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood,’ the watchman explained, showing it in his hand; ‘and I was mentioning that a person had just gone up to Mr Lightwood’s chambers. It might be the same business perhaps?’
‘No,’ said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to him.
‘No,’ the man assented in a surly way; ‘my letter—it’s wrote by my daughter, but it’s mine—is about my business, and my business ain’t nobody else’s business.’