At last. She was there—in my rooms, awaiting me with explanation!
Chapter Five.
Puts Certain Questions.
Rarely have I felt more put out, or more bitterly disappointed, than I did when I hurried into my flat, expecting to come face to face with Vera, my beloved, and longing to take her in my arms to kiss and comfort her.
Instead, I was confronted by a spinster aunt of Vera’s whom I had met only three times before, and to whom I had, the first time I was introduced to her—she insisted upon never remembering me either by name or by sight, and each time needing a fresh introduction—taken an ineradicable dislike.
“Ah, Mr Ashton, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said without rising. “I have called to talk to you about a great many things—I daresay you can guess what they are—about all this dreadful affair at Houghton.”
Now the more annoyed I feel with anybody of my own social standing, the more coldly polite I invariably become. It was so on this occasion.
“I should love to stay and talk to you, Miss Thorold,” I answered, after an instant’s pause, “but I have just been sitting at the bedside of a sick friend. To-day is the first day he has been allowed to see anybody. The doctor said he ought not to have allowed me in so soon, and he warned me to go straight home, take off every stitch of clothing I have on, and send them at once to be disinfected.”