Jelly had reached her own gate, when she paused for a moment and then turned back across the road. The surgeon had not moved. He was still leaning against his door-post, apparently gazing at Dr. Rane's house. Jelly said what she had returned to say.
"You will please not speak of this again to any one, Mr. Seeley. There are reasons why."
"Not I, Jelly," was the hearty rejoinder. "I don't want to be laughed at in Dallory as a retailer of a ghost-story."
"Thank you, sir."
With that, the surgeon passed into his dwelling, and Jelly went over to hers. And the winter's night wore on to its close.
In the favourable reaction that had fallen on Mrs. Beverage, Jelly might have gone to rest again had she so chosen. But she did not do so. There could be neither rest nor sleep for her. She sat by the kitchen-fire, and drank sundry cups of tea: and rather thought, what with one perplexity and another, that it was not sinful to wish herself dead.
In the morning about seven o'clock, when she was upstairs in her chamber, she heard the sound of a gig in the lane, and looked out. It was Dr. Rane, returning from his visit to his patient. His face was white and troubled. An ordinary passer-by would have said the doctor was cold: Jelly drew a different conclusion.
"It's his conscience," she mentally whispered. "It's the thought of having to live in his house now that he knows what's in it. He might have set it down to my fancy the first time: he can't this. Who knows, either, but what she appears to him?--who knows? but it strikes me his nerves are made of iron. He must have been driving like mad, too, by the way the gig's splashed!" added Jelly, catching a glimpse of the state of the vehicle as it whirled round the corner towards the stables. "Good Heavens! what is to be done?--what is to be done about this dreadful secret? Why should it have fallen on ME of all people in the world?"