Late in the afternoon he went in again. Mrs. Grey was worse: flushed, restless, and slightly delirious. The doctor said nothing; but when he got home, he sent a summons for Mrs. Chaffen. A skilled nurse, she; and first cousin to the Widow Jinks, both in respect to kin and to love of gossip.
That same evening, after dark, when Adam Andinnian was sitting in his wife's room, and Ann Hopley was concocting something in a saucepan over the kitchen fire, the gate bell clanged out. It had been nothing unusual to hear it these last few days at any hour; and the woman, putting the saucepan on the hob for safety, went forth, key in hand.
No sooner had she unlocked the gate than Mr. Moore brushed past her, followed by a little thin woman with a bundle. Ann Hopley stared: but never a word said he.
"Keep close to me, and you won't lose yourself," cried he to the little woman; and went tearing off at a double-quick pace through the intricacies of the maze.
Ann Hopley stood like one bewildered. For one thing, she had not possessed the slightest notion that the surgeon knew his way through, for he had given no special indication of it, always having followed her. He could have told her that he had learnt the secret of the maze long before she came to Foxwood. It had been shown to him in old Mr. Throckton's time, whom he had attended for years. And, to see a second person pass in, startled her. All she could do was to lock the gate, and follow them.
On went the doctor; the little woman keeping close to his coat tails: and they were beyond the maze in no time. Mr. Moore had no private motive for this unusual haste, except that he had another patient waiting for him, and was in a hurry. In, at the open portico, passed he, and made direct for the stairs, the woman after him. Ann Hopley, miles behind, could only pray in agony that her master might escape their view.
But he did not. The doctor had nearly reached the top of the staircase, when a gentleman, tall, and in evening dress, suddenly presented himself in front, apparently looking who it might be, coming up. He drew back instantly, strode noiselessly along the corridor, and disappeared within a door at its extreme end. It all passed in a moment of time. What with the speed, and what with the obscurity of the stairs and passages, any one, less practical than the doctor, might have questioned whether or not it had happened at all.
"That's Mr. Grey, come down," thought he. "But he seems to wish not to be noticed. Be it so."
Had he cared to make any remark upon it to Mrs. Grey, he could not have done so, for she was quite delirious that night. And, as he saw no further sign of the gentleman at any subsequent visit, he merely supposed that Mr. Grey had come down for a few hours and had gone again. And the matter passed from his mind.
It did not so pass from the nurse's. Mrs. Chaffen had distinctly seen the gentleman in evening attire looking down the stairs at her and the doctor; she saw him whisk away, as she phrased it, and go into the further room. In the obscure light, Mrs. Chaffen made him out to be a very fine-looking gentleman with beautiful white teeth. She had keen eyesight, and she saw that much: she had also a weakness for fine-looking men, and felt glad that one so fine as this should be in the house. It could not make much difference to her; but she liked gentlemen to be in a dwelling where she might be located: they made it lively, were pleasant to talk to; and were generally to be found more liberal in the offers of glasses of wine and what not than the mistresses. Like the doctor, she supposed this was Mrs. Grey's husband, come down at last.