I was on this flight myself that night and about half way up, when I was stopped,—not by any unexpected sound as at the time before—but by a prickle of my scalp and a sense of being pulled back by some unseen hand. I shook the fancy off and rushed pell-mell to the top with a laugh on my lips which however never reached my ears. Then reason reasserted itself and I went straight on in the direction of my room, and was just turning aside from Wealthy’s cosy corner when I saw the screen which hemmed it in move aside and reveal her standing there.
She had seen me through a slit in the screen and for some purpose or other showed a disposition to speak.
Of course, I paused to hear what she had to say.
It was nothing important in itself; but to her devotion everything was important which had any connection with her sick master.
“It is late,” she said. “Clarke is out and I have been waiting for Mr. Bartholomew’s bell. It does not ring. Would you mind—Oh, there it is,” she cried, as a sharp tinkle sounded in our ears. “You will excuse me, sir,” releasing me with a gesture of relief.
An episode of small moment and hardly worth relating; but it is part—a final part, so far as I am concerned—of that day’s story.
XIII
The following one was less troublesome, and so was the next; then came the week of my sojourn elsewhere and of Edgar’s dominance in the house we all felt would soon be his own. Whether Orpha confided to him her latest trouble I never heard. When his week was up and I replaced him again in the daily care of our uncle, I sought to learn if help or disappointment had come to her in my absence. But beyond a graver bearing and a manifest determination not to be alone with me even for a few moments in any of the rooms on the ground floor, I received no answer to my question. Orpha could be very inscrutable when she liked.
It was during the seven happy days of this week that three rather important conversations took place between Uncle and myself, portions of which I now propose to relate. I will not try your patience by repeating the preamble to any one of them or the after remarks. Just the bits necessary to make this story of the three Edgars understandable.