I looked at him gloomily. I could not believe even now that he would dismiss me without some by-effort toward the prize that he saw almost within his grasp; and I was right.
“Still,” he went on, “I don’t claim infallibility for my deduction. I shall be pleased, if you wish it, to return with you and if possible to question the patient.”
I was too anguished and distraught to reject even this little thread of hope. Perhaps it was in me that at the last moment the sight of that stricken figure at home might move the cold cynicism of the man before me to some weak warmth of charity.
He bade me wait in the hall while he finished his breakfast and I had nothing for it but to go and sit down under the row of smoky prints.
He kept me a deliberate while, and then came forth leisurely and donned his brown coat, that was hanging like a decayed pirate beside me. We walked out together.
The mill greeted us with no jarring thunder as we entered its door, for the discord of its phantom grinding I had myself silenced.
I listened as we climbed the wooden stairs for any sound from the room above, but only the echo of our footfalls reverberated in the lonely house.
No sign of old Peggy had I seen, but, when I pushed open the door of my father’s room there she was standing by his bed and leaning over.
At the noise of our entrance she twisted her head, gave a sort of sudden pee-wit cry and tumbled upon the floor in a collapsed heap, the tablet from the bed in her hand.