As she seemed at a loss how to proceed, Carlisle said: "Yes? What is
it?"

The young person raised a bare hand and brushed it, with a strange
gesture, before her eyes.

"Dr. Vivian he told me to give you this note, ma'am."

She added, as if suddenly moved to destroy a possible impression of Dr.
Vivian as a slave-driver, flinging orders this way and that:

"He'd of brung it himself, on'y I was going walkin' myself, ma'am, and
asked him to leave me take it."

If the fall was from the height of the securest moment Carlisle had
known since her self-betrayal, the more stunning was the impact. Her
heart appeared to abdicate its duties, with one kick; all her being drew
together in a knot within her. It had come, after all. To run away was
well, but she had not run soon enough....

She received the note mechanically, saying: "Very well."

"Would you wish me to wait for a nanser, ma'am? Doctor he didn't
say ..."

In heaven or earth, what answer would she find to this?

"No, you needn't wait."