The Master is Late.
“Hadn’t we better begin breakfast. Mr Hampton?” said Gertrude.
“Oh, don’t hurry, my dear. Mr Hampton is not going to town by the early train. What a lovely morning! Perhaps he has gone for a walk.” The ladies walked to the window and Mr Hampton turned his newspaper and coughed loudly, as he glanced at the breakfast-table, afterwards making a wry face as he felt sundry twinges suggestive of Nature’s demands for food.
A quarter of an hour slipped by, and then the old housekeeper, who kept to the same simple old fashion adopted by her late master, whose household had consisted of Denton, a housemaid, cook, and gardener, entered the dining-room.
“Shall I bring up the ham, Miss Gertrude?”
“Perhaps you had better go and knock at Mr Harrington’s door. He may have dropped asleep again.”
The old woman went out, and at the end of five minutes she came back, looking pale and scared.
“I—I can’t make him hear, miss,” she said. “Do you think he is ill?”
“Gone for a walk,” said the old lawyer sharply.
“I—I don’t think he has gone out, sir,” faltered the old lady. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind going up to his room.”