"Not personally," I answered, "although I expect that pleasure
to-morrow, as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already
a resident at Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie?
or have you taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can
have interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose
you know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she
comes before the world, retaining all the privileges of privacy,--a
contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady,
only a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell me
what I can do for you?"

"Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. "You are
very kind; but I am afraid I have troubled you, when, after all,
there may be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to
your lodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale.
I wish you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for stopping you."

And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next
morning, it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at
a plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been.
Arriving at my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate,
lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the
brightest to the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident
as at some former periods that this final step, which would mix me up
irrevocably with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could
possibly be taken. It was nothing short of midnight when I went to
bed, after drinking a glass of particularly fine sherry on which I
used to pride myself in those days. It was the very last bottle; and
I finished it, with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out
for Blithedale.