I looked up doubtfully.
“I don’t think I can,” I replied; “by the time I have finished my letter it will be too late, and it looks misty and disagreeable enough already. I don’t think you should go out either, Moore. It is just the sort of evening to catch cold in.”
I spoke without misgiving, for my thoughts were running on my letters. Moore did not at once reply.
“I’ll see about it,” he said; “anyway I shan’t go far, and I won’t catch cold.”
“Be sure you are in by six,” I called back to him as I left the room.
And till close upon that hour my letters engrossed me, and when I had seen them safely despatched, and returned to the library, I scarcely gave a thought to anything else, till the timepiece striking the quarter past, made me begin to expect to hear Moore’s footsteps every moment. But the clock’s ticking went on to the half-hour without his coming.
“It is wrong of him,” I began to think, “to stay out like this, when he knows I am all alone, especially after what I said.” Then as my half-forgotten fears suddenly revived—“He can’t have—oh! no, surely he would not think of anything of the kind; I am too fanciful,” and I took up a book and tried to interest myself in it. But such tryings are generally of the nature of make-believe. Sometimes, indeed, any effort of the kind, like a half dose of chloroform, only seems to intensify the consciousness one would fain put aside. I grew more and more uneasy, and when once again the timepiece struck—this time the quarter to—I threw my book aside, and gave up pretending that I had no cause for misgiving. It was not raining now, and the sky, though darkening for the evening, seemed clearer. I soon made up my mind what to do, and hurried to my own room to fetch my wraps. On the way out I met one of the men-servants.
“I am afraid we may be a little late for dinner,” I said. “My brother has stayed out so long. I am going to meet him. I know the way he has gone.”
The young man, who was extremely obliging, as were all the servants of that well-managed household, offered to go off himself in search of the truant, but I shook my head.
“No, thank you,” I replied; “I shall find him easily. He was not going far.”