Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house,
at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be
dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't
over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good
deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well
that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you
better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on
your engagement."
As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the
stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had
wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over
the elder man's high, narrow head sparsely covered with lank hair of
fading brown.
It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more
in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf substituted in
haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with
curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred
hobble for a waddling run.
Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl
before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling
feet in woollen slippers.
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