He drank off another glass.
"You won't run away to that aunt o' your'n while I'm drowsing?" he said.
"No," she replied. "I would not do a shabby sort of trick like that."
He took her hand in his, and a moment later had closed his eyes. Once or twice he opened them to gaze fondly at her, but presently the great, roughly hewn face settled down into repose. Hetty bent over him, laid her cheek against his, and felt his forehead. He never stirred. She then listened to his breathing, which was perfectly quiet and light.
"He's gone off like a baby. That's wonderful stuff in aunt's bottle," muttered Hetty. Finally, she threw a shawl of her own over him, drew down the blind of the nearest window, and went on tiptoe out of the kitchen.
"He'll sleep for hours. I did," she said to herself.
She put the little bottle back into its place in the dairy and moved softly about the house. She was to meet the Squire at six. It was now five o'clock. It would take her the best part of an hour to walk to the Court. She went up to her room, put on her hat, and as she was leaving the house, once again entered the kitchen. Vincent's face was pale now—he was in a dead slumber. She heard his breathing, a little quick and stertorous, but he was always a heavy breather, and she thought nothing about it. She left the house smiling to herself at the clever trick she had played on her husband. She was going to meet the Squire now. Her heart beat with rapture.
CHAPTER XXI.
Awdrey's cure was complete; he had passed right through the doom of his house, and got out on the other side. He was the first man of his race who had ever done that; the others had forgotten as he forgot, and had pined, and dwindled, and slipped and slipped lower and lower down in the scale of life until at last they had dropped over the brink into the Unknown beyond. Awdrey's downward career had been stopped just in time. His recovery had been quite as marvellous as his complaint. When he saw his own face reflected in the pond on Salisbury Plain the cloud had risen from his brain and he remembered what he had done. In that instant his mental sky grew clear and light. He himself had murdered Horace Frere; he had not done it intentionally, but he had done it; another man was suffering in his stead; he himself was the murderer. He knew this absolutely, completely, clearly, but at first he felt no mental pain of any sort. A natural instinct made him desirous to keep his knowledge to himself, but his conscience sat light within him, and did not speak at all. He was now anxious to conceal his emotions from the doctor; his mind had completely recovered its balance, and he found this possible. Rumsey was as fully astonished at the cure as he had been at the disease; he accompanied Awdrey back to London next day, and told Margaret what a marvellous thing had occurred. Awdrey remembered all about his son; he was full of grief for his loss; he was kind and loving to his wife; he was no longer morose; no longer sullen and apathetic; in short, his mental and physical parts were once again wide awake; but the strange and almost inexplicable thing in his cure was that his moral part still completely slumbered. This fact undoubtedly did much to establish his mental and physical health, giving him time to recover his lost ground.