"I shall go out for a little while."
"For any particular purpose?"
"No. To get through the time. I am weary of waiting."
I felt positively assured, from the manner in which he answered me, that he was going—now he had got rid of Mr. Finch—straight to his cousin's house.
"You forget," I said, "that Lucilla may come here while you are out. Your presence in the room, or in the room next to this, may be of the greatest importance, when I tell her what your brother has done. Suppose she refuses to believe me? What am I to do if I have not got you to appeal to? In your own interests, as well as in Lucilla's, I request you to remain here with me till she comes."
Putting it on that ground only, I waited to see what he would do. After a certain hesitation, he answered with a sullen assumption of indifference, "Just as you please!"—and walked away again towards the other end of the room. As he turned his back on me, I heard him say to himself, "It's only waiting a little longer!"
"Waiting for what?" I asked.
He looked round at me over his shoulder.
"Patience for the present!" he answered. "You will hear soon enough." For the moment, I said no more to him. The tone in which he had replied warned me that it would be useless.
After an interval—how long an interval I cannot well say—I heard the sound of women's dresses in the passage outside.