“This is not for me. This is for Mr. Hastings. Who sorted the letters?”
“Mr. Hastings, I believe, sir, as usual.”
“What made him put his own letter into the rack?” muttered George to himself. He went about the office; went into the private room and searched his own table. No, there was no letter for him. Mr. Hurde remembered that Mr. George Godolphin had been put out in the morning by not receiving an expected letter.
George looked at his watch. “There’s no time to go to Verrall’s,” he thought. “And he would be starting to come here by the time I reached the Folly.”
Up to his own room to dress, which was not a long process. He then entered his wife’s boudoir.
“Drawing still, Maria?”
She looked up with a bright glance. “I have been so industrious! I have been drawing nearly all day. See! I have nearly finished this.”
George stood by the table listlessly, his thoughts preoccupied: not pleasantly preoccupied, either. Presently he began turning over the old sketches in Maria’s portfolio. Maria left her seat, and stood by her husband, her arm round his neck. He was now sitting sideways on a chair.
“I put some of these drawings into the portfolio this morning,” she observed. “I found them in a box in the lumber-room. They had not been disinterred, I do believe, since they came here from the Rectory. Do you remember that one, George?”
He took up the sketch she pointed to. A few moments, and then recollection flashed over him. “It is a scene near Broomhead. That is Bray’s cottage.”