, had not been unduly alarmed by the telegraphic news
of his temperature, and was content to write. She might probably be
arranging to come on the morrow. After all, George's temperature had
reached 104 in the previous attack. Then there was the fog. The fog
would account for anything.

Nevertheless, nobody was really satisfied by these explanations of
Hilda's silence and absence. In every heart lay the secret and sinister
thought of the queerness and the incalculableness of Hilda.

Edwin called several times on the Orgreaves. He finally left their
house about ten o'clock, with some difficulty tracing his way home from
gas lamp to gas lamp through the fog. Mr Orgreave himself had escorted
him with a lantern round the wilderness of the lawn to the gates. "We
shall have a letter in the morning," Mr Orgreave had said. "Bound to!"
Edwin had replied. And they had both superiorly puffed away into the
fog the absurd misgivings of women.

Knowing that he was in no condition to sleep, Edwin mended the
drawing-room fire, and settled down on the sofa to read. But he could
no more read than sleep. He seemed to lie on the sofa for hours while
his thoughts jigged with fatiguing monotony in his head. He was
extraordinarily wakeful and alive, every sense painfully sharpened. At
last he decided to go to bed. In his bedroom he gazed idly out at the
blank density of the fog. And then his heart leapt as his eye
distinguished a moving glimmer below in the garden of the Orgreaves. He
threw up the window in a tumult of anticipation. The air was absolutely
still. Then he heard a voice say, "Good night." It was undoubtedly Dr
Stirling's voice. The Scotch accent was unmistakable. Was the boy
worse? Not necessarily, for the doctor had said that he might look in
again `last thing,' if chance favoured. And the Scotch significance of
`last thing' was notoriously comprehensive; it might include regions
beyond midnight. Then Edwin heard another voice: "Thanks ever so much!"
At first it puzzled him. He knew it, and yet! Could it be the
Sunday's voice? Assuredly it was not the voice of Mr Orgreave, nor of
any one living in the house. It reminded him of the Sunday's voice.

He went out of his bedroom, striking a match, and going downstairs lit
the gas in the hall, which he had just extinguished. Then he put on a
cap, found a candlestick in the kitchen, unbolted the garden door as
quietly as he could, and passed into the g