The sudden creation--her creation--of the link with Mr.Cannon seemed to her surpassingly strange and romantic; and in so regarding it she had no ulterior thought whatever: she looked on it with the single-mindedness of an artist looking on his work.

And was it not indeed astounding that by a swift caprice and stroke of audacity she should have changed and tranquillized the ominous future for her unsuspecting mother and herself?
Was it not absolutely disconcerting that she and this Mr.
Cannon, whom she had never known before and in whom she had no other interest, should bear between them this singular secret, at once innocent and guilty, in the midst of the whole town so deaf and blind?
II A somewhat shabby-genteel, youngish man appeared at the head of the stairs; he was wearing a silk hat and a too ample frock-coat.

And immediately, from the hidden corridor at the top, she heard the voice of Mr.Cannon, imperious: "Karkeek!" The shabby-genteel man stopped.

Hilda wanted to escape, but she could not, chiefly because her pride would not allow.

She had to go on.