She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature⁠—a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years⁠—I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off.

We all met again at dinnertime.