"Not so much about my face, if yer don't mind," said Mr. Rabbit. "An' I shan't be at all sorry ter go; I don't 'alf like the company you keep!"
With this doubtful compliment flung at me, Mr. George Rabbit shuffled out of the room, with a parting grin at the doctor. I took him out of the house and across the grounds towards the stable, showed him where, by mounting a ladder, he could get to his nest among the straw in the loft. "And don't smoke there," I said, "if only for your own sake."
"I 'aven't got anythink to smoke," he said, a little disgustedly. "I never thought of it. I 'aven't so much as a match on me."
I knew that the stable was deserted, because I had never seen any horses there, and I knew that the doctor kept none. I left George Rabbit in the dark, and retraced my steps to the house. I met the doctor in the hall; he had evidently been waiting for me.
"Well?" he asked, looking at me with a smile.
"I don't think he'll trouble us again," I said. "As you suggested, he won't get anyone to believe his story, even if he tells it, and a great many things may happen before he gets rid of his five pounds. Take my word for it, we've seen the last of him."
I went to my room and prepared for bed. At the last moment it occurred to me that I had said nothing to the doctor about Capper, or about the treachery of Harvey Scoffold, and I decided that that omission was perhaps, after all, for the best. The business of the man Capper was one which concerned Debora, in a sense, and I knew that the doctor was no friend to Debora. I determined to say nothing at present.
It was a particularly warm night, with a suggestion in the air of a coming storm. I threw back the curtains from my window, and flung the window wide, and then, as there was light enough for me to undress by without the lamp, I put that out, and sat in the semi-darkness of the room, smoking. I was thinking of many things while I slipped off my upper garments, and only gradually did it dawn upon me that across the grounds a light was showing where no light should surely be. Taking my bearings in regard to the position of the house itself, I saw that that light would come from the loft above the disused stable.
I cursed George Rabbit and my own folly for trusting him. At the same time it occurred to me that I did not want to make an enemy of the man, and that I might well let him alone, to take what risks he chose. The light was perfectly steady, and there was no suggestion of the flicker of a blaze; I thought it possible that he might have discovered some old stable lantern, with an end of candle in it, and so have armed himself against the terrors of the darkness. Nevertheless, while I leaned on the window-sill and smoked I watched that light.
Presently I saw it move, and then disappear; and while I was congratulating myself on the fact that the man had probably put out the light, I saw it appear again near the ground, and this time it was swinging, as though someone carried it. I drew back a little from the window, lest I should be seen, and watched the light.