"I'm sorry, father!" she said, laying her hand on his arm soothingly.
"It was not an ordinary poacher, only a gentleman who had mistaken the
Heron water for the Avory's. Come now, father, you have barely time to
dress."
"Yes, yes, I will come in a moment--a moment," he said.
But after she had left the room, he still lingered, and when at last he
got to the door, he closed it and went back to the cupboard and tried
it, to see if it were locked, muttering, suspiciously: "Did she hear me? She might have heard the rustle of the parchment, the
turn of the lock. Sometimes I think she suspects--But, no, no, she's a
child still, and she'd say something, speak out. No, no; it's all
right. Yes, yes, I'm coming, Ida!" he said aloud, as the girl called to
him on her way up the stairs.