“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Never did I promise anything more willingly.
She was still reluctant to go. To appease her I accompanied her upstairs. When she reached Mrs. Peddar’s own apartment she was still unwilling to suffer me to leave her, her unwillingness making me absurdly happy.
As I descended those interminable stairs it was as if I trod on air. It was ridiculous. Why should I be affected, one way or the other, by the whims, and airs, and fancies of an apparently half-witted woman, who had forced her way into my room at dead of night in a cloak all wet with blood.
CHAPTER IV.
DR. HUME
I was awoke next morning by Atkins bringing in my cup of coffee. He asked me a question as he arranged it on the small table beside my bed.
“Do you know, sir, if Mr. Lawrence slept in his rooms last night?”
He had aroused me from a dreamless slumber, and I was not yet sufficiently awake to catch the full drift of his inquiry.
“Slept in his rooms? What do you mean?”