“I thought you might. I suppose ‘Morocco’ put you on the scent? And I suppose, too, that you looked at that wretched bit of paper?”
“I—I thought of it—” Here Mary was slightly embarrassed.
“You’d have been more than human if you hadn’t. I was out again after it in five minutes—as soon as I missed it; you’d gone, but I concluded you’d seen it. He scribbles dozens like that.”
“You seem to admit my conclusion about his mental condition,” she observed stiffly.
“I always admit when I cease to be able to deny. But don’t let’s stand here talking. Really, for all I know, he may be dying. His heart seems to me very bad.”
“Go and ask Dr. Irechester.”
“He dreads Irechester. I believe the sight of Irechester might finish him. You must come.”
“I can’t—for the reasons I’ve told you.”
“Why? My misdeeds? Or your rules and regulations? My God, how I hate rules and regulations! Which of them is it that is perhaps to cost the old man his life?”
Mary could not resist the appeal; that could hardly be her duty, and certainly was not her inclination. Her grievance was not against poor old Mr. Saffron, with his pitiful delusion of greatness, of a greatness, too, which now had suffered an eclipse almost as tragical as that which had befallen his own reason. What an irony in his mad aping of it now!