Without thinking of what he did, he seated himself at the dressing-table, rested his elbows thereon, and gazed straight before him in the glass, but without seeing his distorted, haggard face.
“And it has come to that!” he groaned.
He, in his cunning, is taking all the necessary steps, such as a legal practitioner would know to be necessary, and I am to be carried off on these men’s certificates to some death in life, while my affectionate Cousin Thompson takes possession here.
“And he could,” he mused; “everything has been arranged for him. I am not mad; I am perfectly sane, but, Heaven knows, I am acting like a madman—like one possessed. I go always with this terrible shadow enveloping me, and I cannot shake it off, try how I may.
“What shall I do?
“Salis! No, I cannot tell him. Mr Delton? No, no, no! I could not speak out. What would they say? They must declare it to be a mania if I tell them the simple truth, and how dare I confess to having instituted those experiments on Luke Candlish?
“Was ever man so cursed for his endeavours? I have branded myself as one who is mad, and I must bear the stigma.”
He clenched his fist and glared before him, recalling the scene in his drawing-room, and burst into a scornful laugh—a laugh so full of savage anger that he started and looked wildly about him in dread.
He calmed down though in a few minutes, and sat repeating the words that had passed.
“I must have been blind not to have seen it before,” he cried aloud; “and now what is to follow?”