As she entered the courtyard of Brown's Buildings, Celia bought an
evening paper. If she had mistaken the significance of the old
gentleman's message and the man who haunted her thoughts had been
arrested, the case might be reported. She scanned the police news
anxiously; but there was no report, and she was laying the paper down
when her eye caught a familiar name in a paragraph. She read the few
lines in a kind of stupor, with a sense of unreality; and when she had
finished reading she stood with the paper gripped in her hand, and
staring stupidly before her.
The paragraph ran thus:-"We regret to announce the death of Mr. William Bishop, the
well-known antiquarian, which occurred suddenly at his country
residence early this morning."
Slowly through her stupor broke the realization that she had been thrust
back into the ranks of the unemployed, that only a few shillings stood
between her and utter destitution.