When I left him it was fully daylight. I came out of the house into the narrow, high-walled garden, and left him standing at the door in his black skull-cap and dressing-gown, peering out at me; then the door was closed, and the dark house swallowed him up.
I was now quite determined that I would go back to the house of Bardolph Just, and would find out for myself what was happening there. I had no real hope of meeting Debora, save by accident; I knew that since my disclosure I was less to her than any common tramp she might meet upon the roadside. But when I thought of her, without a friend, in that great house, and with one man and one woman at least bent upon her death, I felt that private considerations must be tossed aside, and that I must swallow my pride and my sense of injury, and must go to her help. If by some good fortune I could persuade her that the jail-bird she knew me to be was swallowed up in the man who hopelessly loved her, and was eager to help her, I might yet be able to perform that miracle of saving her. I felt that I had conquered the man I had least hope of conquering—Uncle Zabdiel; I was less afraid of others than I had been of him.
The thought of Martha Leach troubled me most; there was something so implacable about her enmity. That she meant to destroy the girl, I knew; and I felt certain, from what I had heard, that she was equally bent on destroying me. I chuckled to myself at the thought that in that second business I had defeated her; I was equally confident that I should defeat her in the first. For in defeating her I knew that my surest weapon would be the doctor himself, because anything that happened to me in the way of exposure must bring that dead man from his grave, and must revive that scandal he was so anxious to cover up. I made a shrewd guess that the woman, in rushing full tilt against me, was doing so blindly, and without consulting Bardolph Just. Knowing the power of that man over her, I thought that I could stop her even more easily than I had stopped my uncle.
However, I had blundered badly once or twice by plunging headlong into matters that required careful consideration; with a new wisdom that was coming to me, I determined to reform that trait in my character, and to weigh what I purposed doing for a few hours before setting about it. I would marshal my facts, and so have them ready at my tongue's end when I wanted them.
Thus it happened that I spent a large part of the day wandering about, and striving to arrive at some definite plan of action. It was late in the afternoon when I went at last to the house of Bardolph Just, and opened the outer gate and walked into the grounds. I will confess that my heart was beating a little heavily, because I knew that I might at any moment meet Debora, and I could guess what her attitude would be. However, I came to the house, and rang the bell, and waited to be admitted.
The servant who came to the door at last looked at me in some little surprise, I thought, but greeted me civilly enough. I enquired for the doctor as I stood in the hall; I thought the man seemed astonished that I should ask the question.
"Dr. Just is away, sir. Everybody's away, sir," he said.
"Away?" I stared at the man in a dazed fashion, wondering what he meant. "Everybody?"
"Yes, sir. Dr. Just, and Mr. Scoffold, and Miss Debora. They've all gone down to Green Barn, in Essex, sir. Quite a large party, sir," went on the man garrulously. "Mrs. Leach has gone with them."
I kept my head lowered, that the man might not see the expression on my face. "When did they go?" I asked slowly.