"What is to be done?" was asked.
"Go to Green's room," I replied, "and knock at the door. If he is there, he may answer, not suspecting your errand."
"Show me the room."
I went up with him, and pointed out No. 11. He knocked lightly, but there came no sound from within. He repeated the knock; all was silent. Again and again he knocked, but there came back only a hollow reverberation.
"There's no one there," said he, returning to where I stood, and we walked down-stairs together. On the landing, as we reached the lower passage, we met Mrs. Slade. I had not, during this visit at Cedarville, stood face to face with her before. Oh! what a wreck she presented, with her pale, shrunken countenance, hollow, lustreless eyes, and bent, feeble body. I almost shuddered as I looked at her. What a haunting and sternly rebuking spectre she must have moved, daily, before the eyes of her husband.
"Have you noticed Mr. Green about this morning?" I asked.
"He hasn't come down from his room yet," she replied.
"Are you certain?" said my companion. "I knocked several times at the door just now, but received no answer."
"What do you want with him?" asked Mrs. Slade, fixing her eyes upon us.
"We are in search of Willy Hammond; and it has been suggested that he was with Green."