"Prowling there on the chance of you? Well--I thought she was what you
wanted."
"Then," I returned, "you _could_ tell what I was talking about!" For a
moment after this we faced each other without more speech, but I
presently continued: "You didn't really notice if any lady stayed
behind?"
"I think you ask too much of me," he at last brought out. "Take care of
your ladies, my dear man, yourself! Go," he repeated, "and see."
"Certainly--it's better; but I'll rejoin you in three minutes." And
while he went his way to the smoking-room I proceeded without more delay
to assure myself, performing in the opposite sense the journey I had
made ten minutes before. It was extraordinary what the sight of Long
alone in the outer darkness had done for me: my expression of it would
have been that it had put me "on" again at the moment of my decidedly
feeling myself off. I believed that if I hadn't seen him I could now
have gone to bed without seeing Mrs. Briss; but my renewed impression
had suddenly made the difference. If that was the way he struck me, how
might not, if I could get at her, she? And she might, after all, in the
privacy at last offered us by empty rooms, be waiting for me. I went
through them all, however, only to find them empty indeed. In conformity
with the large allowances of every sort that were the law of Newmarch,
they were still open and lighted, so that if I had believed in Mrs.
Briss's reappearance I might conveniently, on the spot, have given her
five minutes more. I am not sure, for that matter, that I didn't. I
remember at least wondering if I mightn't ring somewhere for a servant
and cause a question to be sent up to her. I didn't ring, but I must
have lingered a little on the chance of the arrival of servants to
extinguish lights and see the house safe. They had not arrived, however,
by the time I again felt that I must give up.