She had a suspicion of who it was, and found Richmond waiting.
“Come up and see him.”
Richmond hesitated.
“I must not stay long,” she said. “My father frets for me if I am away.”
“And I am situated almost the same. Mark does not like to be left. Come up, dear, and help me to persuade him that he ought to employ the police.”
“No, no! don’t talk of them,” said Richmond, with a shudder. “I want the horror at our house forgotten, and they keep reminding me that the law does not sleep.”
“Why, Rich, how strangely you talk!”
“Strangely, dear! No. Only it comes back like a nightmare ever since that terrible affair, so soon as it is mentioned. I seem to be wandering about the house in misery, fever, and pain, trying to see through a mist that I cannot penetrate. I don’t know how it is or what it means, but I have this horrible thought troubling me, that I came down that night to go to the surgery, and that I saw something.”
“Saw something! Saw what?”
“Ah! that is what I cannot tell,” said Rich with a shudder. “I was better this morning, and more hopeful. My poor father seemed a little clearer in his mind, but the past is all a blank to him.”