But this has been a digression from the morning's business, and we must return to the husband, whose wish and will she would have liked to defy, and to the office where he sat. The room was very quiet; nothing to be heard in it but the scratching of three pens; Mr. Brown's, Mr. Hurst's, and Mr. Jenner's. This room was not entered indiscriminately by callers; the opposite door inscribed "Clerks' Office," was on the swing perpetually. This room was a very sedate one: as a matter of course so in the presence of Mr. Bede Greatorex; and the head of it in his absence, Mr. Brown, allowed no opportunity for discursive gossip. He was as efficient a clerk as Greatorex and Greatorex had ever possessed; young yet: a tall, slender, silent man, devoted to his business; about three years, or so, with them now. He wore a wig of reddish brown, and his whiskers and the hair on his chin were sandy. Bede Greatorex shut some papers into his desk with a click, and began opening another parchment. "Did you get an answer yesterday, from Garnett's people, Mr. Hurst?" he suddenly asked. "No, sir. I could not see them." "Their clerk came in last evening to say we should hear from them today," interposed Mr. Brown, looking up from his writing to speak. It was in these moments--when the clerk's eyes unexpectedly met those of Mr. Bede Greatorex--that the latter would feel a kind of disagreeable sensation shoot through him. Over and over again had it occurred: the first time when Mr. Brown had been in the office but a day. They were standing talking together on that occasion, when a sudden fancy took Bede that he had seen the man somewhere before. It was not to be called a recognition; but a kind of semi-recognition, vague, indefinite, uncertain, and accompanied by a disagreeable feeling, which had its rise perhaps in the very uncertainty. "Have we ever met before?" Mr. Bede Greatorex had questioned; but Mr. Brown shook his head, and could not say. A hundred times since then, when he met the steady gaze of those remarkably light grey eyes (nearly always bent on their work), had Bede stealthily continued to study the man; but the puzzle was always there. Mr. Brown's eyes and face were bent on his desk again today. His master, holding a sheet of parchment up before him, as if to study the writing better, suffered his gaze to wander over its top and fix itself on Mr. Brown. The clerk, happening to glance up unguardedly, caught it. He was one of the most observant men living, quiet though he seemed, and could not fail to be aware that he was thus occasionally subjected to the scrutiny of his master--but he never appeared to see it. "Did you speak, sir?" he asked, as if he had looked up to put the question.