So it was here that the final parting had taken place.
He seated himself with his legs across a chair, and began to talk to Geraldine of the interesting news which Jessie had just whispered to him when they met on the road.

The character of his remarks was not quite what it would have been a day or two ago; he joked with more freedom than was his custom.

Studiously he avoided the eyes of his wife and daughter.

He declined to sit up to the table, but drank a cup of tea with his hands resting on the back of a chair.
The Cartwright sisters were anxious to use the evening for a visit to certain other friends; shortly after six o'clock they took their departure.

While Emily and Mrs.Hood were seeing them away at the door, Hood went upstairs to his laboratory.
'Emily, come here,' Mrs.Hood said, with anxious earnestness, leading the way back into the sitting-room.