“The devil must have had me in his clutch all these days,” muttered the judge. “I have been worse than a lunatic. Not a word from me to my poor folks at home!”
To tell the truth, I had not been giving much thought to our remissness in that duty. I have never been much of a letter-writer in my life—I had been so long without folks who cared to hear from me that the matter of keeping anybody posted on my whereabouts never came into my mind. To be sure, I had Celene Kingsley in my mind all the time, even in the stress of our adventures, but I had not presumed to write to her. During our travels it had not occurred to me that it was any part of my business to prompt Judge Kingsley in any of his family affairs. But now that we were back, in front of that gloomy house, I realized just how brutal the whole thing was.
The judge went to his office door and his hand trembled so violently that the key clattered all around the hole; what with the darkness and his agitation, he could not unlock the door, and I did it for him, gently taking the key from his hand.
I lighted his lamp when we were within. We stood there for a few moments and looked at each other.
“It’s so still!” he mumbled. “It seems early for them to be in bed.”
“But your folks must be all right,” I ventured. “If there was anything wrong we would have heard about it while we have been riding about town.”
“Probably! Probably!” His voice quavered and he was all a-tremble. “But it seems so still!”
He sat down at his table and pulled out the notes he had been gathering.
“You are entitled to look on, Mr. Sidney! I wanted you to see me do it. I don’t just understand all the reasons yet why you have helped me as you have. We will talk about that some day when my head is clearer. It’s all a dream—a dream—a dream—so it seems now.” He sort of maundered along in his talk. He did not seem to be at all sure of himself. If the thought did come to me with any force that then was a good time to tell him why I had volunteered as I had done, I put the idea away when I looked at him.
He dumped papers out of a tin tray which stood on the table. He piled the notes in the tray.