I was
waiting for you, Mr. Harthouse, till it came down as I never saw it
come down before. Where was I too! Where were you, you mean.'
'I was prevented from coming - detained.'
'Detained!' murmured Tom. 'Two of us were detained. I was
detained looking for you, till I lost every train but the mail. It
would have been a pleasant job to go down by that on such a night,
and have to walk home through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in
town after all.'
'Where?'
'Where? Why, in my own bed at Bounderby's.'
'Did you see your sister?'
'How the deuce,' returned Tom, staring, 'could I see my sister when
she was fifteen miles off?'
Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman to whom he was
so true a friend, Mr. Harthouse disembarrassed himself of that
interview with the smallest conceivable amount of ceremony, and
debated for the hundredth time what all this could mean? He made
only one thing clear. It was, that whether she was in town or out
of town, whether he had been premature with her who was so hard to
comprehend, or she had lost courage, or they were discovered, or
some mischance or mistake, at present incomprehensible, had
occurred, he must remain to confront his fortune, whatever it was.
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