Nothing daunted, however, Mrs. Magill strode forward and knocked. There was no answer except a slight cough, probably caused by the officer's sudden exertion in locking his door. "Major," said the widow, in a gentle tone, "do you hear me?" Echoless silence received her words. She began again, with a considerably increased alertness of voice: "Major! Are you engaged or not?"
"Very much so," answered Zadoc from within, and with a startlingly robust and comfortable voice for an invalid.
"I mean, to me," explained Mrs. Magill, with annoyance. "Mrs. Douce, here, has the face to declare that you are not. I wish the question answered in her presence. Are you engaged to be married?"
"I am sorry not to be able to open the door," responded the evasive Barrington. "It fatigues me to talk in this way, so I hope you'll be satisfied with my answering this one question."
"Well," said the widow, more affably, "say you are—"
"I are engaged to be married," promptly struck in the major, with untimely jocoseness.
"Am, you mean," Mrs. Magill corrected. But silence had resumed its reign on the other side of the door.
"Very well, that will do," she concluded, somewhat as a prose Portia finishing a cross-examination in a modern law-court might have done. She shot upon Mrs. Douce a glance of scorn, saying, "I shall come again to-morrow," and then proudly departed.
XIII.
But she did not come on the morrow. Barrington sent her a note, which effectually prevented her doing so.