Chapter XXXI
“So you are actuated by the best motives? Poor devil! Have you tried strychnine?”
—La Rabide.
HE next morning I called in Mr. and Mrs. Titch, Aramatilda, and Halfred, and, in a voice from which I could not altogether banish my emotion, I told them that I must give up my rooms and that they might never see me again. From Halfred's manner I could not but suspect he was prepared for ominous news; he had evidently concluded that a man who introduced after dark such a visitor as I had entertained last night must stand on the brink either of insanity or crime. Yet his stoical look as he heard my announcement said, better than words: “You may disgust my judgment, but you cannot shake my fidelity. Through all your errors I am prepared to stand by you, and brush your trousers even on the morning of your execution.”