Read "Coelebs" by Ethel Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Mr Errol, seated in his pleasant drawing-room scanning a newspaper while his wife occupied herself with some sewing in the twilight hour before the lamps were lighted, suddenly lowered his paper, and looked with surprised eyes towards the window, which he faced. For a moment he doubted the evidence of his senses. Had his eyesight been less keen and his mind less evenly balanced, he might have been deceived into believing that his imagination was playing him tricks; but, after the first moment of doubt, he realised that the amazing sight of Mr Musgrave peeping surreptitiously in through the window and almost immediately withdrawing with the guilty alacrity of a person caught in some unlawful act was no optical illusion, but a very astounding actuality.
He glanced at his wife to discover whether she had observed these unusual proceedings, and, finding that her attention was absorbed in her occupation, he rose quietly, and without saying anything to her went out to investigate matters. Why, in the name of mystery, should John Musgrave prowl about outside the house after the manner of a clumsy trespasser, instead of ringing the bell and stating his business in the ordinary way?