"'E don't read the stuff what is familiar to 'im," explained Robinson, and so saying, he took from some corner of the room a little table and set it up by a chair by the fire, for the Warden's tea-tray.
Meanwhile May Dashwood had taken tea with her Aunt Lena and then had gone to her own room. So that when the Warden did arrive, just about half-past five, he found no one moving about, no one visible. He came in like a thief in the night, pale and silent. He glanced round the hall, preoccupied apparently, but really aware of things that were around him to a high degree of sensitiveness. He moved noiselessly, rang the bell, and then looked at the table for letters. Robinson appeared immediately. The Warden's narrow eyes, that seemed to absorb the light that fell upon them, rested upon Robinson's face with that steady but veiled regard with which a master controls those who are under him.
The Warden did not ask "Where are the ladies?" he asked whether Lady Dashwood was in.
"In 'er room, sir," said Robinson; and he then proceeded to explain why, and gave the doctor's report. "Nothin' alarmin', sir."
The Warden said "Ah!" and looked down at the table. He glanced over the letters that were waiting for him. He gathered them in his hands.
"Tea is in the library for you, sir," said old Robinson; "I will bring it in a minute."
The Warden went upstairs.
He went past the drawing-room and past his bedroom into the library. He threw his letters down on the writing-desk, walked to the fire, and then walked back again to the desk. Then he finally went out of the room and passed the head of the staircase and up the two or three steps into the corridor.
He had been into the corridor three times since the arrival of his sister. Once when he conducted her to her room, on her arrival, once again when she had made alterations in the bedrooms and had asked for his approval, and then on that wretched night when he had gone to calm Gwendolen and assure her that there were no such things as ghosts. Now he went along over the noiseless floor, anxious to meet no one. Why was Lena ill? He knew why Lena was ill, but for a moment he felt wearily vexed with her. Why did she make things worse? This feeling vanished when he opened her door and went in, and saw her sitting up in bed supported by pillows. Then his feeling was of remorse, of anger increased against himself, and himself only.
She was turning the pages of a paper, ostentatiously looking at the illustrations, but she was really waiting in suspense for his arrival and thinking of nothing else.