"Please, sir, me and Polly thought it wasn't safe for missus, and her so delicate. But she would go."
Algernon shrugged his shoulders and said no more. Before the girl left the room, she said, "Oh, and please, sir, here's some letters as came for you," pointing to a little heap of papers on Castalia's desk.
Left alone, Algernon drew his chair up to the fire and lit a cigar. He did not hasten himself to examine the letters. Bills, of course! What else could they be? He began to smoke and ruminate. He would have liked to see Castalia before going to the office. He would have liked to make his own representation to her of the story he had told Lord Seely. She must be got to corroborate it unknowingly if possible. He reflected with some bitterness that she had lately shown so much power of opposing him, that it might be she would insist on taking a course of conduct which would upset all the combination he—with the help of chance circumstances—had so neatly pieced together. And then he reflected further, knitting his brows a little, that at any cost she must be prevented from spoiling his plans; and that her conduct lately had been so strange that it wouldn't be very difficult to convince the world of her insanity. "'Gad, I'm almost convinced of it myself," said Algernon, half aloud. But it was not true.
The fire was warm, the room was quiet, the cigar was good, the chair was easy. Algernon felt tempted to sit still and put off the moment when he must re-enter the Whitford Post-office. He shuddered as he thought of the place with a kind of physical repulsion. Nevertheless, it must be faced once or twice more. Not much more often, he hoped. He rose up, put on a great-coat, and said to himself lazily as he ran his fingers through his hair in front of the looking-glass, "Where the devil can Castalia have gone mooning to?" Then he turned to leave the room. As he turned his eyes fell on the little heap of letters. He took them up and turned them over with a grimace.
"H'm! Ravell—respectful compliments. Ah! no; your mouth ought to have been stopped, I think! But that's the way. More they get, more they want. Never pay an instalment. Fatal precedent! What's this—a lawyer's letter! Gladwish. Oh! Very well, Mr. Gladwish. Nous verrons. Chemist! What on earth—? Oh, rose-water! Better than his boluses, I daresay, but not very good, and quite humorously dear. Extortionate rascal! And who are you, my illiterate-looking friend?"
He took a square blue envelope between his finger and thumb, and examined the cramped handwriting on it, running in a slanting line from one corner to the other. It was addressed to "Mr. Algernon Errington." "Some very angry creditor, who won't even indulge me with the customary 'Esquire,'" thought Algernon with a contemptuous smile and some genuine amusement. Then he opened it. It was from Jonathan Maxfield!
CHAPTER XIX.
In about a quarter of an hour after reading that letter, Algernon called to the servants to know if their mistress had come back. He did not ring as usual, but went to the door of the kitchen and spoke to both the women, saying that he was uneasy at Mrs. Errington's absence, and did not like to go to the office without seeing her. He said two or three times, how strange it was that his wife should have wandered out in that way; and plainly showed considerable anxiety about her. Both the women remarked how pale and upset their master looked. "Oh, it's enough to wear out anybody the way she goes on," said Lydia. "Poor young man! A nice way to welcome him home!"
"Ah," returned Polly, the cook, shaking her head, "I'm afraid there's going to be awful trouble with missus, poor thing. I believe she's half out of her mind with jealousy. Just think how she's been going on about Miss Maxfield. Why 'tis all over the place. And they say old Max is going to law against her, or something. But I can't but pity her, poor thing."