"Sowter's out," he answered laconically, waiting for her to precede him. He said nothing as to the office-boy, nor as to Mr. Karkeek. Hilda was now sure that something strange had happened. "So you've heard from Sarah, have you?" he began, when they were both seated in his own room. There were still a lot of papers, though fewer than of old, on the broad desk; but the bookcase was quite empty, and several of the shelves in it had supped from the horizontal; the front part of the shelves was a pale yellow, and behind that, an irregular dark band of dust indicated the varying depths of the vanished tomes. The forlornness of the bookcase gave a stricken air to the whole room. "She's not well." "Or she imagines she's not well." "Oh no!" said Hilda warmly. "It isn't imagination. She really isn't well." "You think so?" "I don't think--I know!" Hilda spoke proudly, but with the restraint which absolute certainty permits. She crushed, rather than resented, George Cannon's easy insinuation, full of the unjustified superiority of the male. How could he judge--how could any man judge? She had never before felt so sure of herself, so adult and experienced, as she felt then. "But it's nothing serious?" he suggested with deference. "N--no--not what you'd call serious," said Hilda judicially, mysteriously. "Because she wants to give up the boarding-house business altogether-- that's all!" Having delivered this dramatic blow, George Cannon smiled, as it were, quizzically. And Hilda was reassured about him. She had been thinking: "Is he ruined? If he is not ruined, what is the meaning of these puzzling changes here?" And she had remembered her shrewd mother's hints, and her own later fears, concerning the insecurity of his position: and had studied his tired and worn face for an equivocal sign. But this smile, self-confident and firm, was not the smile of a ruined man; and his flashing glance seemed to be an omen of definite success. "Wants to give it up?" exclaimed Hilda. He nodded. "But why? I thought she was doing rather well." "So she is." "Then why?" "Ah!" George Cannon lifted his head with a gesture signifying enigma. "That's just what I wanted to ask you. Hasn't she said anything to you?" "As to giving it up? No!... So it was this that you wanted to see me about?" He nodded. "She wrote me a few days after you came away, and suggested I should see you and ask you what you thought." "But why me?" "Well, she thinks the world of you, Sarah does." Hilda thought: "How strange! She did nothing but look after me, and wait on me hand and foot, and I never helped her in any way; and yet she turns to me!" And she was extremely flattered and gratified, and was aware of a delicious increase of self-respect. "But supposing she does give it up?" Hilda said aloud. "What will she do?"