The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

My hand dropped from the curtain. But don't suppose -- oh, don't suppose -- that the dreadful embarrassment of my situation was the uppermost idea in my mind! So fervent still was the sisterly interest I felt in Mr. Godfrey, that I never stopped to ask myself why he was not at the concert. No! I thought only of the words -- the startling words -- which had just fallen from his lips. He would do it today. He had said, in a tone of terrible resolution, he would do it today. What, oh what, would he do? Something even more deplorably unworthy of him than what he had done already? Would he apostatise from the faith? Would he abandon us at the Mothers' Small-Clothes? Had we seen the last of his angelic smile in the committee-room? Had we heard the last of his unrivalled eloquence at Exeter Hall? I was so wrought up by the bare idea of such awful eventualities as these in connection with such a man, that I believe I should have rushed from my place of concealment, and implored him in the name of all the ladies' committees in London to explain himself -- when I suddenly heard another voice in the room. It penetrated through the curtains; it was loud, it was bold, it was wanting in every female charm. The voice of Rachel Verinder.

"Why have you come up here, Godfrey? " she asked. "Why didn't you go into the library?"