With this she walked off; but, having a creepy instinct in her back that he was on the point to follow, catch, and snatch her away, she span round again, crying: “Do not follow me! Mind you! If you like, be at the elm-tree again at half-past ten-and I will communicate with you. Goodbye—”
Now she did not once look back; and he had not heard that fainting “Good-bye”, it had fainted so.
He found himself presently in his room at the paper-shop, and lay biting the bed-clothes, spasm after spasm traversing his body.
Then, turning on his back, he lay with his face now toward the trunk, and a little clock ticked ten more minutes before the fact stole into his consciousness that the bag was not on the trunk.
For some time the disappearance was too stupendous to find room in his brain. He got up and paced, stunned, just conscious of a feeling of unease.
Now he was searching the room mechanically. It was not there....
And again he paced, tapping his top teeth with a finger-nail; and now he called down the stair: “Have you seen, Mrs. Sturgess, the calico bag you gave me to-day?”
“Why, no”.
“Has anyone been in my room?”
“Why, no, sir! Only myself”.