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His volition had fled, he was subdued to his surroundings, for the moment conquered.

He entered a breakfast room, light and pleasantly furnished, where at a breakfast table and before a silver tea urn sat a lady of forty or so, thin faced, high nosed, aristocratic and rather faded.

She was reading a letter, and when she saw the incomer she rose from the table and gathered some other letters up. Then she, literally, swept from the room. She looked at him as she passed, and it seemed to Jones that he had never known before the full meaning of the word “scorn.”

For a wild second he thought that all had been discovered, that the police were now sure to arrive. Then he knew at once. Nothing had been discovered, the delusion held even for this woman, that glance was meant for Rochester, not for him, and was caused by the affair of last night, by other things, too, maybe, but that surely.

Uncomfortable, angry, nervous, wild to escape, and then yielding to caution, he took his seat at the table where a place was laid—evidently for him.