But no other question came.

Instead his lordship turned on the threshold and held out his hand.
"Not a step farther, O'Moy.

I've left you a mass of work, and you are short of a secretary.

So don't waste any of your time on courtesies.

I shall hope still to find the ladies in the garden so that I may take my leave without inconveniencing them." And he was gone, stepping briskly with clicking spurs, leaving O'Moy hunched now in his chair, his body the very expression of the dejection that filled his soul.
In the garden his lordship came upon Miss Armytage alone, still seated by the table under the trellis, from which the cloth had by now been removed.