" The three of us were going up the great staircase to bed as this
was said, and, not knowing quite her meaning, I dropped the subject. It
edged delicate ground, I felt. Frances added no word of her own. It now
occurred to me abruptly that "stay" was the word made use of, when
"live" would have been more natural. How insignificant to recall! Yet
why did they suggest themselves just at this moment ...?
And, on going to Frances's room to make sure she was not nervous or
lonely, I realized abruptly, that Mrs. Franklyn, of course, had talked
with her in a confidential sense that I, as a mere visiting brother,
could not share. Frances had told me nothing. I might easily have wormed
it out of her, had I not felt that for us to discuss further our hostess
and her house merely because we were under the roof together, was not
quite nice or loyal.
"I'll call you, Bill, if I'm scared," she had laughed as we parted, my
room being just across the big corridor from her own. I had fallen
asleep, thinking what in the world was meant by "getting it straight
again."
And now in my antechamber to the library, on the second morning, sitting
among piles of foolscap and sheets of spotless blotting-paper, all
useless to me, these slight hints came back and helped to frame the big,
vague Shadow I have mentioned.
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