The tone was enigmatic. She could not make Tom out at all, but she went in at his bidding. She knew that he wished to be alone, that he had something disturbing upon his mind, though what it was she could not divine.
Tom, as it turned out, had no choice in the matter; for his brother sent to him next day a message to the effect that Fitzgerald’s servant had been to him with a very sad account of his master, who seemed to be suffering under an acute attack of delirium tremens. Raymond thought his brother, who had seen him once before, had better go the next day in a casual sort of way, and see if he could do anything. Fitzgerald was furious at the idea of having a doctor near him; but possibly he would not regard Tom in that light, and the servants would do all they could to obtain for him access to their master. They were terrified at his ravings, and half afraid he would do himself or them an injury if not placed under proper control.
So Tom, upon the following afternoon, started for the old dilapidated house, without saying a word to anyone as to his destination, and was eagerly admitted by a haggard-looking servant, who said that his master was “terrible bad to-day—it was awful like to hear him go on,” and expressed it as his opinion that he was almost past knowing who was near him, he was so wild and delirious. He had kept his bed for the past two days, having been very ill since coming in, wet and exhausted, on the night Monica had seen him. Between the attacks of delirium he was as weak as a child; and with this much of warning and explanation, Tom was ushered upstairs.
An hour later he left that desolate house with a quick, firm tread, that broke, as he turned a corner and was concealed from view, almost to a run. His face was very pale; it looked thinner and sharper than it had done an hour before, and his eyes were full of an unspeakable horror. Now and again a sort of shudder ran through his frame; but no word passed his tightly-compressed lips. He hurried through the tangled park as if some deadly malaria lurked there. He hardly drew his breath until he had left the trees and brake behind, and had plunged into the wild trackless moor; even then, goaded by his thoughts, he plunged blindly along for a mile or more, until at last, breathless and exhausted, he sank face downwards upon the heather, trembling in every limb.
How long he lay there he never knew. He was roused at last by a touch upon his shoulder, and raising himself with a start, he looked straight into the startled eyes of Beatrice Wentworth.
