I am the last person to intrude myself upon my superiors." "If you will be so kind as to tell me where they have gone ?" Gilbert asked, eager to stop this formal statement of Miss Dodd's social standing.
"Where _they_ have gone!" she repeated.

"Dear, dear! Then you do not know----" "I do not know what ?" "Of Captain Sedgewick's death." "Good God! My dear old friend! When did he die ?" "At the beginning of the year.

It was very sudden--a fit of apoplexy.

He was seized in the night, poor dear gentleman, and it was only discovered when the servant went to call him in the morning.

He only lived two days after the seizure; and never spoke again." "And Miss Nowell--what made her leave the cottage?
She is still at Lidford, I suppose ?" "O dear no, Mr.Fenton.She went away altogether about a month after the Captain's death." "Where did she go ?" "I cannot tell you that, I did not even know that she intended leaving Hazel Cottage until the day after she left.