His voice, which had risen to a scream, stopped. Toft had opened the door. “Sir! Mr. Audley!” he cried. “For God’s sake be calm! For God’s sake have a care, sir! And you, Miss,” he continued; “you see what you have done! If you’ll leave him I’ll get him to bed. I’ll get him to bed and quiet him—if I can.”
Mary was shocked, and yet she felt that she could not go without a word. “Dear uncle,” she said, “you wish me to go?”
He had clutched one of the posts of the bed and was supporting himself by it. The fire had died down in him, he was no more now than a feeble, shaking old man. He wiped his brow and his lips. “Yes, go,” he whispered. “Go.”
“I am very sorry I disturbed you,” she said. “I won’t do it again. You were right, Toft. Good-night.”
The man said “Good-night, Miss.” Her uncle said nothing. He had let himself down on the bed, but he still clung to the post. Mary looked at him in sorrow, grieved to leave him in this state. But she had no choice, and she went out and, closing the door behind her, groped her way down the narrow staircase.
It was a little short of ten when she reached the parlor, but she was in no mood for reading. What she had seen had shocked and frightened her. She was sure now that her uncle was not sane; and while she was equally sure that Toft exercised a strong influence over him, she had her misgivings as to that. Something must be done. She must consult some one. Life at the Gatehouse could not go on on this footing. She must see Dr. Pepper.
Unluckily when she had settled this to her mind, and sought her bed, she could not sleep. Long after she had heard Etruria go to her room, long after she had heard the girl’s shoes fall—familiar sound!—Mary lay awake, thinking now of her uncle’s state and her duty towards him, nor of her own future, that future which seemed for the moment to have lost its brightness. Doubts that the sun dismisses, fears at which daylight laughs, are Giants of Despair in the dark watches. So it was with her. Misgivings which she would not have owned in the daylight, rose up and put on grisly shapes. Her uncle and his madness, her lover and his absence, passed in endless procession through her brain. In vain she tossed and turned, sat up in despair, tried the cooler side of the pillow. She could not rest.
The door creaked. She fancied a step on the staircase, a hand on the latch. Far away in the depths of the house a clock struck. It was three o’clock—only three o’clock! And it would not be light before eight—not much before eight. Oh dear! Oh dear!
And then she slept.
When she awoke it was morning, the light was filtering in through the white dimity curtains, and some one was really at her door. Some one was knocking. She sat up. “What is it?” she cried.