He then courteously took leave of the surgeon, after making an appointment with him a few hours after at his own house, and got into the coach with Maud, having directed the driver to his house at Westminster.
Careful not to disturb her slumber, Sir Francis Hartleton unclosed the hand of poor Maud, and found crumpled into a hard ball, a number of small scraps of paper, on which were words and disjointed sentences. That the few words he could find were deeply interesting to the magistrate might have been gathered from the expressions of his face as he read them. His hands trembled with excitement as piece after piece he spread open and perused.
“Here is important matter,” he said, “but it is sadly out of joint. This must be some remnant of a paper containing a strange history, and here is, it seems, the name of Ada. I must more at my leisure examine these. Thank Heaven they have fallen into no other hands than mine.”
He then placed the torn scraps carefully in his pocket-book; and looking from the coach window, he found that they were nearly at his house. He carefully lifted the still sleeping Maud from the coach, and carried her to a comfortable bedroom, resigning her to the care of his wife and the astonished Ada, while he hurried to his own study to decipher the mysterious scraps of paper at his leisure.
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
The Revelation.—Learmont’s Deep Duplicity.—Albert’s Gratitude.
The morning found Albert Seyton true to his appointed time at Learmont’s. In fact, long before he could think of knocking for admittance, being ashamed of so much eagerness, he had arrived in the immediate vicinity, and wandered restlessly about until the hour should come.
The hope, so suddenly springing up as it had, in the midst of his despair of again beholding Ada, through the exertions of his new patron, had, in the endless mass of surmises and conjectures it had given rise to, banished sleep from his pillow, and it was not till the first faint gleam of the coming day poured in at his bedroom window, that he became conscious of the rapid flight of time.
To attempt to sleep then, he thought, was useless, and besides he might oversleep himself, and appear to be negligent of his appointment with the rich man, who had promised to do so much for him. He therefore rose, and as we have said, paced about the street in the vicinity of Learmont’s house, little dreaming that he was taking so much trouble and feeling so much elation for Ada’s worst and bitterest enemy.
At length he thought, although he was too soon, he might knock for admittance, and with a nervous hand he seized the old massive knocker at Learmont’s door.