“He must know,” she said; and she entered the dining-room at once, to find that he was absent, though he had been home while she was away.
“Master said he had some business to transact, ma’am, and would have a chop at the Assembly Rooms. You were not to wait dinner.”
Claire went to her own room to think.
May had, in accordance with her promise, gone to hers; then she had written a brief note, ordered the carriage, and gone for a drive, closely veiled. One of her calls was at Miss Clode’s, where she entrusted her note, not to some volume to be sold, but to Miss Clode’s round-eyed, plump-cheeked niece, who promised to deliver it at once.
End of Volume Two.
Volume Three—Chapter One.
Miss Clode is Mysterious.
Richard Linnell had left his quiet, patient-looking father busily copying a sheet of music, and joined Colonel Mellersh, who was waiting at the door ready for a stroll.