Langler, of course, was quite out of tune with us all at the moment, and he could not perhaps observe the look of our faces, for the night was dark.
As I touched his arm he spun round, saying: "ah, Arthur," and I remember how his tone of the world, his cigar, shocked me: he seemed to me a grosser being than we. I wished to say to him: "Hush! the earth is holy ground."
In a low voice I asked him as to his sister. His answer was: "she is in the house; two hours ago a note was handed to her, purporting——"
"We can't speak of it now," I said, stopping him: "all is well if she is in the house."
When he looked at me with some surprise I whispered to him: "we are none of us inclined to talk just now: you will soon know why."
The others meanwhile all going within, in the inner hall I now heard a laugh which I recognised as Miss Emily's, and I did not know whether it more shocked me or filled me with thankfulness that she was safely there.
"If you had waited one little hour for me," she said as I went in, "I should have been back to go to the church with you."
"I will explain all later," I answered. "I had to go to look for Aubrey."
"Look for him?"
"You may be told in time," I answered: "you see, everyone is making haste to retire...."