“I'm quite right again, Sir,” she said, with a sigh. She had taken her “drops,” and seemed restored.
“Hadn't you better have one of the maids with you? I'm going now; I'll send some one,” he said. “You must get all right, Martha. It pains me to see you ill. You're a very old friend, remember. You must be all right again; and, if you like, we'll have the doctor out, from town.”
He said this, holding her thin old hand very kindly, for he was by no means without good-nature. So sending the promised attendant, he and Longcluse proceeded to the billiard-room, where, having got the lamps lighted, they began to enjoy their smoke. Each, I fancy, was thinking of the little incident in the housekeeper's room. There was a long silence.
“Poor old Tansey! She looked awfully ill,” said Richard Arden at last.
“By Jove! she did. Is that her name? She rather frightened me,” said Mr. Longcluse. “I thought we had stumbled on a mad woman—she stared so. Has she ever had any kind of fit, poor thing?”
“No. She grumbles a good deal, but I really think she's a healthy old woman enough. She says she was frightened.”
“We came in too suddenly, perhaps?”
“No, that wasn't it, for I knocked first,” said Arden.
“Ah, yes, so you did. I only know she frightened me. I really thought she was out of her mind, and that she was going to stick me with a knife, perhaps,” said Mr. Longcluse, with a little laugh and a shrug.
Arden laughed, and puffed away at his cigar till he had it in a glow again. Was this explanation of what he had seen in Longcluse's countenance—a picture presented but for a fraction of a second, but thenceforward ineffaceable—quite satisfactory?