“Oh, no. It’s something very important, much more important than that. And I must see him; I tell you I must! And if you won’t help me, I shall go to work in a way of my own, and give the poor man a fright.”
“Oh, no, Miss Mabin, you won’t do that, I’m sure! You don’t know how delicate the poor gentleman is; more than once since he’s been here he has given me a fright, and made me think he was going to die. And he’s so peculiar; he won’t let one send for a doctor, not if it’s ever so, he won’t. I’m sure one morning, a fortnight ago, when I found him lying on the floor in the hall with the back garden door open, I thought he was dead, that I did. But when I’d brought him to—for he’d fainted, just like a woman—he wouldn’t hear of my getting any one to come and see him——”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mabin. “Was that on a Tuesday night—I mean Wednesday morning?”
“Yes, so it was.”
Mabin smiled.
“Well, I know the reason of that attack. And perhaps I’ll tell you some day, if you’ll manage to let me see him now. And first tell me what you think of him. Is he mad, do you think, or what? You remember, when he first came, you thought he was.”
Langford shook her head dubiously.
“Well, really, Miss Mabin, I can’t rightly tell you what I do think about him. Sometimes I do think he’s off his head altogether; he marches up and down the drawing-room—that’s the room he has taken to himself—by the hour together, going faster and faster, till I listen outside the door wondering if anything is going to happen, and whether he’s going to break out like and do himself a mischief. But if I make an excuse to go in, though his eyes are wide and glaring, so that at the first look he frightens one, yet he always speaks to me quite gently, and says he doesn’t want anything. Of course I pretend not to notice anything, and I think he likes the way I take him. For, though he’s always civil-spoken to every one, he doesn’t let the two girls come near him, if he can help it. If they come up from the kitchen or out of a room when he’s by, he just turns his back and waits till they’ve gone past.”
Mabin listened with deep interest, and without interrupting by a question. But when Langford paused for breath, the young girl asked suddenly:
“Does he have any letters? It isn’t just curiosity that makes me ask, I needn’t tell you.”