Thence she wandered into all the nooks around the place from which the sound seemed to proceed--among the huge laurestines, about the tufts of pampas grasses, amid the variegated hollies, under the weeping wych-elm--nobody was there.

Returning indoors she called 'Unity!' 'She is gone to her aunt's, to spend the evening,' said Mr.Swancourt, thrusting his head out of his study door, and letting the light of his candles stream upon Elfride's face--less revealing than, as it seemed to herself, creating the blush of uneasy perplexity that was burning upon her cheek.
'I didn't know you were indoors, papa,' she said with surprise.

'Surely no light was shining from the window when I was on the lawn ?' and she looked and saw that the shutters were still open.
'Oh yes, I am in,' he said indifferently.

'What did you want Unity for?
I think she laid supper before she went out.' 'Did she ?--I have not been to see--I didn't want her for that.' Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason was required, what that reason was.

Her mind for a moment strayed to another subject, unimportant as it seemed.