[CHAPTER III.]
TO EVERY MAN HIS OWN FEAR.
After a pause of astonishment at the inexplicable flight of her lover, Dora ran upstairs to the room of Mr. Edermont. It was imperative that she should learn the truth of this disturbance, and, in the absence of Dr. Scott, her guardian was the proper person to explain the matter. Had Dora glanced back at Joad, who followed closely, she might have gathered from his malignant expression that he was likely also to afford an explanation; but in her anxiety she went directly to the door of Mr. Edermont's bedroom. It was wide open, and the occupier was still sobbing by the open window.
"What is the matter?" cried Dora, hurrying forward. "Why has Allen----"
Edermont lifted up a white face wet with tears, and flung out two thin hands with a low cry of terror. Then, with a sudden anxiety in his eyes, he staggered rather than walked across the room, and closed the door sharply. Joad had already entered, and, still hugging a book, stood looking grimly at the swaying figure of his patron. With his back to the door, Edermont interrogated his ward and his friend.
"Has he gone? Is the gate closed--is it locked and barred?"
"He has gone, and the gate is safe," said Joad, for Dora was too astonished by the oddity of these questions to reply.
Edermont wiped the sweat from his forehead, nodded weakly, and finally subsided into an armchair. Here he bowed his face in his hands, and Dora caught the drift of the words which he muttered in a low voice. They were those of his favourite prayer from the Litany.
"'From battle and murder, and from sudden death, good Lord, deliver us,'" moaned the man; and then in some measure he recovered his serenity.
Seized with a sudden anger at the abject terror he had displayed, at the shameful accusation he had levelled against her lover, Dora stepped forward and faced Mr. Edermont with an indignant look.