Yet, granting that identity, it is still a not uncommon name; there are whole families, whole clans of Johnstons along the Scottish border, and plenty of English Johnstons and Johnstones likewise.
Am I fighting with shadows, and torturing myself in vain? God grant it!
Still, after this discovery, it is vitally necessary to learn more. I have sat up till midnight, waiting Treherne's return. He did not overtake me—I never expected he would—or desired it. I came back, when I did come back, another way. His hut, next to mine, is still silent.
So is the whole camp at this hour. Refreshing myself a few minutes since by standing bare-headed at my hut-door, I saw nothing but the stars overhead, and the long lines of lamps below; heard nothing but the sigh of the moorland wind, and the tramp of the sentries relieving guard.
I must wait a little longer; to sleep would be impossible till I have tried to find out as much as I can.
What if it should be that—the worst? which might inevitably produce—or leave me no reason longer to defer—the end?
Here it seemed as if with long pondering my faculties became torpid. I fell into a sort of dream; which, being broken by a face looking in at me through the window, a sickness of perfectly childish terror came over me. For an instant only—and then I had put away my writing-materials and unbolted the door.
Treherne came in, laughing violently. “Why, Doctor, did you take me for a ghost?”
“You might have been. You know what happened last week to those poor young fellows coming home from a dinner-party in a dogcart.”