During their entire interview, Henry had stood like a sentinel at the outer door of the ante-room, while that leading into the chamber of the prisoner stood wide open. At the first accent of rage, he darted forward; and as the girl sprang away from her step-father, that gentleman felt himself seized and hurled with scant ceremony to the middle of the room.
"Don't you try that, sir!" cried Henry, in high wrath. "You won't find me a friend, if you do."
"So," panted the old man, "this is one of your hirelings, is it? And pray, sir, what is this young fiend to pay you for your services?"
"That's my affair," responded the man, coolly. "You can't buy me off; and if you try that game again, you will get yourself into a straight jacket."
Madeline laughed, and said: "There, Henry, you need not be alarmed for me. But when you report this attack to the doctor, tell him that I think he had better take measures to secure his safety and yours, in case your patient should be again seized with a fit of violence."
John Arthur immediately saw that he had damaged his own cause.
"You had better sleep upon my proposition, Mr. Arthur," said Madeline, from the threshold. "If you pine for liberty, send for me. And don't think, for a moment, that I shall allow you to go free without taking the necessary precautions to insure myself against any trouble you might desire to make me. Adieu, Mr. Arthur." And she swept from the room.
John Arthur stood for many minutes in the same place and attitude. When his anger would permit him, he began to wonder. She had come and gone, and how much the wiser was he? Where had she been all these months? Why had she allowed them to think her dead? Who were her friends, for friends she must have found? Why had her presence in the house, if she had been here, been kept from him? How had she gained the ascendancy over every one in that house? He thought so long and intensely that he started up, at last, almost beginning to fear that he was becoming mad.
When Dr. Le Guise again came into his presence, he began to question him. But it was labor lost. Dr. Le Guise would not admit that he was a sane man. Dr. Le Guise knew nothing, absolutely nothing, outside the range of his professional duties. He was sorry for his patient; very sorry. He assumed to take all assertions on the part of Mr. Arthur as so many fresh evidences of insanity.