of my meeting the
person who had insulted me by sending me back my books. I slipped into
the little third room, which I have mentioned as communicating with
the back drawing-room, and dropped the curtains which closed the open
doorway. If I only waited there for a minute or two, the usual result
in such cases would take place. That is to say, the doctor would be
conducted to his patient's room.

I waited a minute or two, and more than a minute or two. I heard the
visitor walking restlessly backwards and forwards. I also heard him
talking to himself. I even thought I recognised the voice. Had I made
a mistake? Was it not the doctor, but somebody else? Mr. Bruff, for
instance? No! an unerring instinct told me it was not Mr. Bruff. Whoever
he was, he was still talking to himself. I parted the heavy curtains the
least little morsel in the world, and listened.

The words I heard were, "I'll do it to-day!" And the voice that spoke
them was Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's.

CHAPTER V

My hand dropped from the curtain. But don't suppose--oh, don't
suppose--that the dreadful embarrassment of my situation was the
uppermost idea in my mind! So fervent still was the sisterly interest I
felt in Mr. Godfrey, that I never stopped to ask myself why he was
not at the concert. No! I thought only of the words--the startling
words--which had just fallen from his lips. He would do it to-day. He
had said, in a tone of terrible resolution, he would do it to-day. What,
oh what, would he do? Something even more deplorably unworthy of him
than what he had done already? Would he apostatise from the faith? Would
he abandon us at the Mothers'-Small-Clothes? Had we seen the last of
his angelic smile in the committee-room? Had we heard the last of his
unrivalled eloquence at Exeter Hall? I was so wrought up by the bare
idea of such awful eventualities as these in connection with such a man,
that I believe I should have rushed from my place of concealment, and
implored him in the name of all the Ladies' Committees in London to
explain himself--when I suddenly heard another voice in the room.
It penetrated through the curtains; it was loud, it was bold, it was
wanting in every female charm. The voice of Rachel Verinder.

"Why have you come up here, Godfrey?" she asked. "Why didn't you go into
the library?"

He laughed softly, and answered, "Miss Clack is in the library."

"Clack in the library!" She instantly seated herself on the ottoman in
the