She was glancing backward over her shoulder every instant or two.
“Will you give me your name, then, so I can write to you?” Sydney went on. “Or if I write to Mr. Darley here will you give it to him?”
“No, only write to me, Mrs. Hannah Fox,” and with that the door was closed in his face.
Sydney lingered in front of it a second. He had a blind impulse to ring the bell and compel her to open it again. But he knew that it would be useless, so he turned his steps slowly toward Chestnut street and went to his office.
He found that his absence all day had been productive of not a little harm.
“But this is a part of the expiation,” he murmured to himself.
He put aside the letters waiting to be answered, and set himself to the task of composing the one to Mrs. Fox. It took him a long while to write it. He tore up several completed ones.
The usual hour for closing the office arrived. The boy hovered about his desk, seeming to hope that his presence would remind his employer that it was time to go home.
Sydney looked up at last.
“You may go, John,” he said. “I will mail this.”