Wilkie Collins

“ She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever.
"I mustn't tell you," she resumed, with her head down over the knife. "I have promised not to tell anybody. That's the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hush! here's the spy who saw us last night on the walk, and who told Silas!"
Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen-door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer Book; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age can look at a younger and prettier woman than herself. ”

“ She put down the knife that she was cleaning, and folded her hands before her, thinking.
"I wish I had never given John Jago that meeting," she said. "When a man asks anything of a woman, the woman, I find, mostly repents it if she says 'Yes.'"
She made that quaint reflection with a very troubled brow. The moonlight-meeting had left some unwelcome remembrances in her mind. I saw that as plainly as I saw Naomi herself. What had John Jago said to her? ”

“ Breakfast-time came and dinner-time came, and no John Jago darkened the doors of Morwick Farm. Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter consulted together, and determined to send in search of the missing man. One of the more intelligent of the labourers was despatched to Narrabee to make enquiries. ”