His master gave him one look straight in the eyes, then opened the letter, and read it.
"Miss Marston will call here tomorrow morning," he said; "see that she is shown up at once—here, to my sitting-room. I hope I am explicit."
When the man was gone, Mr. Redmain nodded his head three times, and grinned the skin tight as a drum-head over his cheek-bones.
"There isn't a damned soul of them to be trusted!" he said to himself, and sat silently thoughtful.
Perhaps he was thinking how often he had come short of the hope placed in him; times of reflection arrive to most men; and a threatened attack of the illness he believed must one day carry him off, might well have disposed him to think.
In the evening he was worse.
By midnight he was in agony, and Lady Margaret was up with him all night. In the morning came a lull, and Lady Margaret went to bed. His wife had not come near him. But Sepia might have been seen, more than once or twice, hovering about his door.
Both she and Mewks thought, after such a night, he must have forgotten his appointment with Mary.
When he had had some chocolate, he fell into a doze. But his sleep was far from profound. Often he woke and again dozed off.
The clock in the dressing-room struck eleven.