"Yes, you were perfectly right," he said candidly. "But I have had rather a trying time to-day."
"Indeed you have, and I may say now that I am very sorry for you. I recommend you therefore to go to bed, and not to write to your friend to-night, nor to think what you will say to him when you do."
"And to go to sleep very quietly and soundly till morning," said Harry. "Excellent advice, Dr. Armytage."
"Oh, you will do all these things if you follow my directions," said the doctor.
"I should like to hear them, then."
"To drink the dose I will send you up to your room," he said quietly.
At that moment, as if by a flash-light suddenly turned on, Harry saw himself again meeting at the lodge gates this man for whom, at first sight, he had conceived so violent and instinctive an antipathy, and simultaneously the curious adventure in the search for Dr. Godfrey shone in his mind. What if, after all, Geoffrey was right, and he himself was alone in this house with a man such as his friend had pictured Mr. Francis to be, and his mysterious confederate physician, whose ways were so dark? The suspicions which had seemed to him so utterly beyond the horizon of credibility leaped suddenly nearer. And when he spoke, though he tried to make no alteration in his tone, even to himself his voice sounded unusual.
"I don't think I shall require any doses," he said. "I dare say I shall sleep all right. Thanks all the same."
"Ah, you don't trust me," said the doctor in the same quiet tone.
This exceeding frankness both pleased and offended Harry.