A loud peal of the front-door bell startled him. He stopped for a moment, and looked at Laura, who was sitting with the Vicar and his wife in a little group near the fireplace at the other end of the room. At the sound of the bell she looked up quickly, and, with an agitated air, kept her eyes fixed on the door, as if she expected some one to enter.
He had no excuse for leaving off reading, curious as he felt about that bell, and Laura’s evident concern. He went on mechanically, full of wondering speculations as to what was going on in the entrance hall, hating the open-mouthed and open-eyed infants who were hanging on his words; while Celia, seated at the end of the front row, started all the laughter and applause.
‘Where did I meet that man?’ he asked himself over and over again while he read on.
The answer flashed upon him in the middle of a sentence.
‘It is the man I saw with Chicot in Drury Lane; the man I talked to in the public-house.’
The door opened, and the slow and portly Trimmer came in, and softly made his way to the place where his mistress was seated. He whispered to her, and then she whispered to Mrs. Clare—doubtless an apology for leaving her—and anon followed Trimmer out of the room.
‘What can that man—if it is that man who rang the bell—want with her?’ wondered Edward, so deeply moved that he could scarcely go on reading. ‘Is the secret going to be told to-night? Are the cards going to be taken out of my hands?’
CHAPTER XXVI.
A DISINTERESTED PARENT.
‘A person has called to see you, ma’am. He begs to apologise for coming so late, but he has travelled a long way, and will be very thankful if you can see him.’