Miss Entwhistle said nothing more. With her eyes fixed on her plate in order to avoid those other eyes, she wondered what she had better do. It was half-past eight, and Everard hadn't rung up. If he were going to be anxious enough not to mind the trunk-call charge he would have been anxious enough before this. That he hadn't rung up showed he regarded Lucy's indisposition as slight. What, then, would he say to her uninvited presence there? Nothing, she was afraid, that would be really hospitable. And she had just eaten a pudding of his. It seemed to curdle up within her. 'No, _no_ coffee, thank you,' she said hastily, on Chesterton's inquiring if she wished it served in the library. She had had dinner because she couldn't help herself, urged to it by the servants, but she needn't proceed to extras. And the library,--wasn't it in the library that Everard was sitting the day that poor smiling thing ... yes, she remembered Lucy telling her so. No, she would not have coffee in the library. But now about telephoning. Really the only thing to do, the only way of dignity, was to ring him up. Useless waiting any more for him to do it; evidently he wasn't going to. She would ring him up, tell him she was there, and ask--she clung particularly to the doctor idea, because his presence would justify hers--if the doctor hadn't better look in in the morning. Thus it was that, sitting quiet in their basement, the Twites were startled about nine o'clock that evening by the telephone bell. It sounded more uncanny than ever up there, making all that noise by itself in the dark; and when, hurrying up anxiously to it, Twite applied his ear, all that happened was that an extremely short-tempered voice told him to hold on. Twite held on, listening hard and hearing nothing. 'Say 'Ullo, Twite,' presently advised Mrs. Twite from out of the anxious silence at the foot of the kitchen stairs. ''Ullo,' said Twite half-heartedly. 'Must be a wrong number,' said Mrs. Twite, after more silence. ''Ang it up, and come and finish your supper.' A very small voice said something very far away. Twite strained every nerve to hear. He hadn't yet had to face a trunk call, and he thought the telephone was fainting. ''Ullo?' he said anxiously, trying to make the word sound polite. 'It's a wrong number,' said Mrs. Twite, after further waiting. ''Ang it up.' The voice, incredibly small, began to talk again, and Twite, unable to hear a word, kept on saying with increasing efforts to sound polite, ''Ullo?'Ullo?' ''Ang it up,' said Mrs. Twite, who from the bottom of the stairs was always brave. 'That's what it is,' said Twite at last, exhausted. 'It's a wrong number.' And he went to the writing-pad and wrote: A wrong number rang up sir believed to be a lady 9.10.