It was after eight o’clock when they got up from their tea-table. Neither of them had said a word about Bob; but Wolf felt convinced that the girl, without using one single articulate syllable about the matter, indicated that henceforth she would close her door to Mr. Weevil.

It was with a strange sensation that he found his thoughts reverting to Christie and her trip to Weymouth⁠—a strange and peculiar sensation. He felt as if Christie had grown thin and frail as a ghost⁠—remote and far-off, too⁠—like that day when he saw her crouched in the Castle lane! She seemed to have become once more what she was in the beginning of their friendship⁠ ⁠… a disembodied entity, dwelling in his consciousness like a spirit in a cloud, immaterial, unreal⁠ ⁠… near to him as his own thought and yet far removed in body.