“The shutters are open, madam,” said Mrs. Kell, following Dorothea, who had walked along as she spoke. “ Mr. Ladislaw is there, looking for something.”

(Will had come to fetch a portfolio of his own sketches which he had missed in the act of packing his movables, and did not choose to leave behind.)

Dorothea’s heart seemed to turn over as if it had had a blow, but she was not perceptibly checked: in truth, the sense that Will was there was for the moment all-satisfying to her, like the sight of something precious that one has lost. When she reached the door she said to Mrs. Kell⁠—

“Go in first, and tell him that I am here.”