The departure of Mr. Blount, whom I now saw descending the steps in pursuit of his visitor, relieved me, and I got away from the room, haunted by the face that had so lately appeared to me in my ominous dream, and by the voice whose tones excited a strange tremor, and revived stranger recollections.
In the drawing-room, before a quarter of an hour, I was joined by Mr. Blount. Our tête a tête was an unusually silent one, and, after tea, we played a rather spiritless hit or two at backgammon.
I was glad when the time came to get to my room, to the genial and garrulous society of Rebecca Torkill; and after my candle was put out, I lay long enough awake, trying to put together the as yet imperfect fragments of a story and a situation which were to form the ground-work of the drama in which I instinctively felt that I was involved.
CHAPTER LIII.
one more chance.
