Widdowson met her as she crossed the threshold of home. His face told her that something extraordinary had happened, and she trembled before him.
“Back already?” he exclaimed, with a grim smile. “Be quick, and take your things off, and come to the library.”
If he had discovered anything (the lie, for instance, that she told him a month ago, or that more recent falsehood when she pretended, without serious reason, to have been at Miss Barfoot’s lecture), he would not look and speak thus. Hurrying, panting, she made a change of dress, and obeyed his summons.
“Miss Nunn has been here,” were his first words.
She turned pale as death. Of course he observed it; she was now preparing for anything.
“She wanted to see you because she is going away on Monday. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. You spoke so strangely—”
“Did I? And you look very strangely. I don’t understand you. Miss Nunn says that everybody has noticed how ill you seem. It’s time we did something. To-morrow morning we are going down into Somerset, to Clevedon, to find a house.”
“I thought you had given up that idea.”
“Whether I had or not doesn’t matter.”