After a short lapse of time the surgeon drew back from the sofa and motioned to the landlady to stand aside. The bodily recovery of the patient was assured. There was nothing to be done now but to wait, and let his mind slowly recall its sense of what had happened.
“Where is she?” were the first words he said to the surgeon, and the landlady anxiously watching him.
The landlady knocked at the folding-doors, and received no answer. She went in, and found the room empty. A sheet of note-paper was on the dressing-table, with the doctor’s fee placed on it. The paper contained these lines, evidently written in great agitation or in great haste: “It is impossible for me to remain here to-night, after what has happened. I will return to-morrow to take away my luggage, and to pay what I owe you.”
“Where is she?” Midwinter asked again, when the landlady returned alone to the drawing-room.
“Gone, sir.”
“I don’t believe it!”
The old lady’s color rose. “If you know her handwriting, sir,” she answered, handing him the sheet of note-paper, “perhaps you may believe that?”
He looked at the paper. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, as he handed it back—“I beg your pardon, with all my heart.”
There was something in his face as he spoke those words which more than soothed the old lady’s irritation: it touched her with a sudden pity for the man who had offended her. “I am afraid there is some dreadful trouble, sir, at the bottom of all this,” she said, simply. “Do you wish me to give any message to the lady when she comes back?”
Midwinter rose and steadied himself for a moment against the sofa. “I will bring my own message to-morrow,” he said. “I must see her before she leaves your house.”