Then he resumed his self-communings:
“I wonder, since I am in his rectory, which was also my gift to him, why I never see Cassius Leegh? And I wonder where his sister, my bogus wife, is? And, more than all, I wonder now—what brings James Campbell here?”
He paused in distress, and then moaned to himself:
“I give it up! I give it up! It is all past me! ‘Chaos has come again.’ But one thing is clear, even in chaos—that is, I must escape from this house. I must not wait to be taken to jail, as I should be as soon as the doctor has pronounced me well enough to be removed.”
He thought as intensely as he was capable of thinking, and then suddenly formed a plan.
“I will not get well enough to be removed while I stay here, and I will escape from the house at the first opportunity.”
From this day the patient became a puzzle to his physician as well as to his attendants. He did not seem to gain in strength, but to grow weaker and more helpless every day; notwithstanding that his appetite was good. At night he was restless and delirious.
“I confess that this case perplexes me,” Dr. Hobbs admitted to Mr. Campbell.
But the case grew out of a misunderstanding between the patient and his attendants.
Gentleman Geff, not quite in his right mind yet, believed himself to be under arrest with the prospect of a prison, a trial and conviction before him; whereas there was no intention on any one’s part of even making an accusation against him.