As I opened the door of the room to go out, she looked round at me quickly. The cruel smile slowly widened her lips⁠—she eyed me, with a strange stealthy interest, from head to foot⁠—an unutterable expectation showed itself wickedly all over her face. Was she speculating, in the secrecy of her own heart, on my youth and strength, on the force of my sense of injury and the limits of my self-control, and was she considering the lengths to which they might carry me, if Sir Percival and I ever chanced to meet? The bare doubt that it might be so drove me from her presence, and silenced even the common forms of farewell on my lips. Without a word more, on my side or on hers, I left the room.

As I opened the outer door, I saw the same clergyman who had already passed the house once, about to pass it again, on his way back through the square. I waited on the doorstep to let him go by, and looked round, as I did so, at the parlour window.