She went forward. At the corner of Child Street and High Street the new Town Hall was rising to the skies. Already its walls were higher than the highest house in the vicinity. And workmen were crawling over it, amid dust, and a load of crimson bricks was trembling and revolving upwards on a thin rope that hung down from the blue. Glimpses of London had modified old estimates of her native town. Nevertheless, the new Town Hall still appeared extraordinarily large and important to her. She saw the detested Arthur Dayson in the distance of the street, and crossed hurriedly to the Square, looking fixedly at the storeys above the ironmonger's so that Arthur Dayson could not possibly catch her eye. There was no sign of the _Five Towns Chronicle_ in the bare windows of the second storey. This did not surprise her; but she was startled by the absence of the Karkeek wire-blinds from the first-floor windows, equally bare with those of the second. When she got to the entrance she was still more startled to observe that the Karkeek brass-plate had been removed. She climbed the long stairs apprehensively. III "Anybody here?" she called out timidly. She was in the clerk's office, which was empty; but she could hear movements in another room. The place seemed in process of being dismantled. Suddenly George Cannon appeared in a doorway, frowning. "Good afternoon, Mr. Cannon!" "Good afternoon, Miss Lessways." He spoke with stiff politeness. His face looked weary. After a slight hesitation he advanced, and they shook hands. Hilda was nervous. Her neglect of his letter now presented itself to her as inexcusable. She thought: "If he is vexed about it I shall have to humour him. I really can't blame him. He must think me very queer." "I was wondering what had become of you," he said, amply polite, but not cordial. "Well," she said, "every day I was expecting you to call again, or to send me a note or something.... And what with one thing and another--" "I dare say your time's been fully occupied," he filled up her pause. And she fancied that he spoke in a peculiar tone. She absurdly fancied that he was referring to the time which she had publicly spent with Edwin Clayhanger at the Centenary. She conceived that he might have seen her and Edwin Clayhanger together. "I had a letter from Miss Gailey this morning," she said. "And it seems that it's about her that you wanted--" "Yes." "I do wish I'd known. If I'd had the slightest idea I should have come over instantly." She spoke with eager seriousness, and then added, smiling as if in appeal to be favourably understood: "I thought it was only about _my_ affairs--sale or what not. And as I'd asked you to manage all these things exactly as you thought best, I didn't trouble--" He laughed, and either forgave or forgot. "Will you come this way?" he invited, in a new tone of friendliness. "We're rather in a mess here." "You're all alone, too," she said, following him into his room.