"Never!"
"Bah, I say again! Come, here we are at the reading-room. Stop the carriage."
He did so.
"Let me out here and I will walk on," she said.
"Had you not better let me get out here, and keep your own seat and drive on?" he inquired.
"No. I don't want the carriage to take me to the hotel. The distance is short. I prefer walking. You had better dismiss it, and go into the reading-room and amuse yourself while waiting for me," she said.
He acquiesced, and she got out and walked rapidly on toward the Blank House.
With her thick veil let down, she slipped in through the ladies' entrance with some visitors that just happened to be going there.
She hurried upstairs to her own rooms and unlocked the door of the private parlor.
All within the place was just as she had left it two hours before.