Though the servant had prepared him for her, he showed signs of agitation.
Gwenda's eyes were ominously somber and she had the white face of a ghost, a face that to Rowcliffe, as he looked at it, recalled the white face of Alice. He disliked Alice's face, he always had disliked it, he disliked it more than ever at that moment; yet the sight of this face that was so like it carried him away in an ecstasy of tenderness. He adored it because of that likeness, because of all that the likeness revealed to him and signified. And it increased, quite unendurably, his agitation.
Gwenda was supernaturally calm.
In another instant the illusion that her presence had given him passed. He saw what she had come for.
"Has anything gone wrong?" he asked.
She drew in her breath sharply.
"It's Alice."
"Yes, I know it's Alice. Is anything wrong?" he said. "What is it?"
"I don't know. I want you to tell me. That's what I've come for. I'm frightened."
"D'you mean, is she worse?"