“Say that he will find me in his room when he wants me; and don’t use a lady’s name so freely, or tell family jokes out of the family,” he said to the boy, who was ashamed of himself. Edgar’s mind was full of new anxieties of which the reader shall hear presently. The Entertainment was a weariness to him, and everything connected with it. He turned away when he had given the message, glad to escape from the riot--the groups trooping up and down the passages, and examining the rooms as if they were a settlement of savages--the Duchess sweeping on in advance on Mr. Tottenham’s arm, with her double eye-glass held up. He turned away through an unfrequented passage, dimly lighted and silent, where there was nothing to see, and where nobody came. In the distance the joyful clatter of the supper-table, where all the young ladies and gentlemen of the establishment were enjoying themselves came to his ears on one side--while the soft laughter and hum of voices on the other, told of the better bred crowd who were finding their way again round other staircases and corridors to the central hall. It is impossible, I suppose, to hear the sounds of festive enjoyment with which one has nothing to do, and from which one has withdrawn thus sounding from the distance without some symptoms of a gentle misanthropy, and that sense of superiority to common pursuits and enjoyments which affords compensation to those who are left out in the cold, whether in great things or small things. Edgar’s heart was heavy, and he felt it more heavy in consequence of the merry-making. Among all these people, so many of whom he had known, was there one that retained any kind thought of him--one that would not, like Lady Augusta, the kindest of them all, have felt a certain fright at his re-appearance, as of one come from the dead? Alas, he ought to have remained dead, when socially he was so. Edgar felt, at least, his resurrection ought not to have been here. With this thought in his mind, he turned a dim corner of the white passage, where a naked gaslight burned dimly. He was close to Mr. Tottenham’s room, where he meant to remain until he was wanted. With a start of surprise, he saw that some one else was in the passage coming the other way, one of the ladies apparently of the fashionable party. The passage was narrow, and Edgar stood aside to let her pass. She was wrapped in a great white cloak, the hood half over her head, and came forward rapidly, but uncertain, as if she had lost herself. Just before they met, she stopped short, and uttered a low cry.