"What do you mean? Speak out, Graves."
But again Graves left the room, murmuring to herself:
"I have not the heart to tell her, yet she must surely know; she must be told."
The long, slow hours passed, and twilight deepened early, for the sky only showed a lurid glow in the west for a few minutes at sunset, and then the rain and mist swept over the city, and nothing was to be seen from the window but the dim light of an oil-lamp here and there, and the flare of the link-boys' torches as they passed in attendance on chairs, or lighted pedestrians across the road for a fee of a halfpenny.
At the accustomed hour Lady Betty set off to the Assembly Room, and the house being quiet, Griselda came out of her room.
David was in attendance with his mistress, and only the woman who let the house and cooked for the family was at home with her daughter.
Griselda heard her voice raised to reproach her daughter, who acted as servant to the establishment, and she caught the words: "Shut the door, Sarah Anne! Send the young rascal away!—a little thief, no doubt!"
Griselda ran downstairs, impelled by some hidden instinct, and feeling sure that the messenger came from Crown Alley.
The door was partially open, and Sarah Anne was evidently trying to shut it against an effort to keep it open.
Then Griselda heard a voice pleading—a musical boyish voice: