I crossed the hall with some impatience, for I had several most anxious cases on hand, and entered my consulting-room. A slight, girlish figure was seated partly with her back to me. She sprang up when the door opened, and I was confronted by the anxious and pleading face of Mrs. Mainwaring.
"You have come at last," she said, with a deep sigh. "That is a blessed relief. I have waited for you here because I want to ask your advice. I am in terrible anxiety about my husband."
"Your husband?" I replied. "But I understood Dr. Abbott to say that he had recovered perfectly. He said he had ordered him for a month to the seaside, and then hoped that he might resume his professional work."
"It was so," she replied. "My husband had a quick recovery. I am told that most typhoid fever patients take a long time to regain their strength, but in his case this was not so. After the worst was over, he seemed to get better by strides and bounds. A fortnight ago Dr. Abbott ordered him to the seaside. I had a fancy for Dover, and thought of going there. I had even written about lodgings, when my husband suddenly told me that he did not wish to go to the seaside, and would prefer spending a fortnight amongst his old haunts at Cambridge. We went there. We—we were very happy. I left the children at home. It seemed something like our honeymoon over again. Yesterday morning I received a letter telling me that my eldest child was not well. I hurried back to Croydon to see her, telling my husband that I would rejoin him to-day. My child's illness turned out to be a trivial one, and I went back to Cambridge by an early train this morning."
Here Mrs. Mainwaring paused and pressed her hand to her heart. Her face, excessively pale before, now turned almost ghastly. She had seated herself; she now stood up, the further to emphasize her words.
"When I reached our lodgings," she said, "my landlady met me with the astounding intelligence that Mr. Mainwaring had packed up all his belongings and had left Cambridge for London by the express train that morning.
"This news surprised me, but at first I heard it calmly enough. I believed that Edward had grown weary of his own society, was anxious about our little Nancy, and had hurried home. My landlady, however, looked so mysterious that I felt certain she had something further to say.
"'Come in, madam, do come in,' she said. 'Perhaps you think your good gentleman has gone home.'
"'I am sure he has,' I said. 'Can you get me a messenger? I will send a telegram at once and find out. If Mr. Mainwaring has gone home, he ought to have arrived by now.'
"My landlady was quite silent for a minute, then she said, gravely:—