He touched the button again, three or four times, and waited. Then a light sprang out overhead, and he knew that he was heard.
“I was sent for,” he exclaimed to the bewildered maid. “I should have been here at twenty-two: I was prevented by the rush.”
She babbled out a question at him.
“Yes, it is true, I believe,” he said. “It is peace, not war. Kindly take me upstairs.”
He went through the hall with a curious sense of guilt. This was Brand’s house then—that vivid orator, so bitterly eloquent against God; and here was he, a priest, slinking in under cover of night. Well, well, it was not of his appointment.
At the door of an upstairs room the maid turned to him.
“A doctor, sir?” she said.
“That is my affair,” said Percy briefly, and opened the door.
A little wailing cry broke from the corner, before he had time to close the door again.