Tell her there was no one else to bring it up.

She'll show no surprise." Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and hastened with it down the hall.

He had been as far as the turn before, but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door on the left and an open alcove on the right.

The door led into Miss Cumberland's room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.
Sweetwater's fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant.

He could not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he sat.
But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw afterwards ever quite effaced.
"When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone," thought he, and lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.
But no.