The Outcry by Henry James

HUGH CRIMBLE waited again in the Bruton Street drawing-room -- this time at the afternoon hour; he restlessly shifted his place, looked at things about him without seeing them; all he saw, all he outwardly studied, was his own face and figure as he stopped an instant before a long glass suspended between two windows. Just as he turned from that brief and perhaps not wholly gratified inspection Lady Grace -- that he had sent up his name to whom was immediately apparent -- presented herself at the entrance from the other room. These young persons had hereupon no instant exchange of words; their exchange was mute -- they but paused where they were; while the silence of each evidently tested the other for full confidence. A measure of this comfort came first, it would have appeared, to Hugh; though he then at once asked for confirmation of it.

"Am I right, Lady Grace, am I right? -- to have _come_, I mean, after so many days of not hearing, not knowing, and perhaps, all too stupidly, not trying. " And he went on as, still with her eyes on him, she didn't speak; though, only, we should have guessed, from her stress of emotion. "Even if I'm wrong, let me tell you, I don't care -- simply because, whatever new difficulty I may have brought about for you here a fortnight ago, there's something that to-day adds to my doubt and my fear too great a pang, and that has made me feel I can scarce bear the suspense of them as they are."