The student's back was toward them, and the Curator quite out of sight behind a close-shut door.
With this doubt in his mind, Mr.Gryce started to approach the couple.

As he did so, he observed another curious fact concerning them.

They were neither of them in the place natural to people interested in the contents of the great cases which they had crossed the hall to examine.

Instead of standing where a full view of these cases could be had, they had withdrawn so far behind them that they presented the appearance of persons in hiding.

Yet as he drew nearer and noted their youth and countrified appearance, Mr.Gryce was careful to assume his most benign deportment and so to modulate his voice as to call up the pink into the young woman's cheek and the deep red into the man's.