All that morning was wasted. The doctor did not come, and May spent the time waiting for him. Lady Dashwood sat up in bed and wrote an apparently interminable letter to her husband. Whenever May appeared she said: "Go away, May!" and then she looked long and wistfully at her niece. Two or three men came to lunch and went into the library afterwards with the Warden, and May went to her Aunt Lena's room. "The doctor won't come now till after three, May, so you must go out, or you will really grieve me," said Lady Dashwood. "Jim will take you out. He came in just after you left me before lunch, and I told him you would go out." "You are supposed to be resting," said May, "and I can't have you making arrangements, dear Aunt Lena. I shall do exactly what I please, and shall not even tell you what I please to do. I do believe," she added, as she shook up the pillows, "that in the next world, dear, you will want to make plans for God, and that will get you into serious trouble." Lady Dashwood sighed deeply. "Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I suppose I must go on pretending I'm ill." May shook her head at her and pulled down the blinds, and left her in the darkness suitable for repose. The Warden had not mentioned a walk. Perhaps he hadn't found an opportunity with those men present! Should she go for a walk alone? She found herself dressing, putting on her things with a feverish haste. Then she took off her coat and sat down, and took her hat off and held it on her knees. She thought she heard the sound of a voice in the corridor outside, and she put on her hat with trembling fingers and caught up the coat and scarf and her gloves. She went out into the corridor and found it empty and still. She went to the head of the stairs. There was no sound coming from the library. But even if the Warden were still there with the other men, she might not hear any sounds of their talk. They might be there or they might not. It was impossible to tell. Perhaps he had gone to look for her in the drawing-room and, finding no one there, had gone out. The drawing-room door was open. She glanced in. The room was empty, of course, and the afternoon sunshine was coming in through the windows, falling across the floor towards the fireplace. It would soon creep up to the portrait over the fireplace. May waited several minutes, walking about the room and listening, and then she went out and closed the door behind her. She went down the staircase into the hall, opened the front door very slowly and went out.