"You have asked four."
"Why are the clocks stopped?"
He turned round on the hearthrug and looked at her. "Because we stopped them," he said, "as is proper."
"And who gives the order to start them?"
Nothing: the fire, the settling coal, nineteen candles.
"The master of the house," said the Duke of Fenwood, "gives that order."
At a quarter past eleven, the door opened by about four inches, and Lady Ellen Rushmere came into the drawing room in her nightgown, with her hair down her back and her feet quite bare.
"Nell!" He was on his feet. "It is eleven o'clock."
"I know. I heard the house."
"You heard?"
"There is talking downstairs." She looked from her uncle to Catherine and back with the terrible directness of nine years old. "There has not been talking downstairs since Mama. Mrs. Tapscott says the drawing room is shut, and it is not shut. I came to see who it was."
Catherine set her work aside and got up. "It is only me, my lady. I am mending your pelisse."
"At night?"