He listened. There was an interval of silence. He looked back again at the Confession, turning over the last leaves to count how much was left of it before it came to an end.
After relating the circumstances under which the writer had returned to domestic service, the narrative was resumed no more. Its few remaining pages were occupied by a fragmentary journal. The brief entries referred to the various occasions on which Hester Dethridge had again and again seen the terrible apparition of herself, and had again and again resisted the homicidal frenzy roused in her by the hideous creation of her own distempered brain. In the effort which that resistance cost her lay the secret of her obstinate determination to insist on being freed from her work at certain times, and to make it a condition with any mistress who employed her that she should be privileged to sleep in a room of her own at night. Having counted the pages thus filled, Geoffrey turned back to the place at which he had left off, to read the manuscript through to the end.
As his eyes rested on the first line the noise in the passage—intermitted for a moment only—disturbed him again.
This time there was no doubt of what the sound implied. He heard her hurried footsteps; he heard her dreadful cry. Hester Dethridge had woke in her chair in the pallor, and had discovered that the Confession was no longer in her own hands.
He put the manuscript into the breast-pocket of his coat. On this occasion his reading had been of some use to him. Needless to go on further with it. Needless to return to the Newgate Calendar. The problem was solved.
As he rose to his feet his heavy face brightened slowly with a terrible smile. While the woman’s Confession was in his pocket the woman herself was in his power. “If she wants it back,” he said, “she must get it on my terms.” With that resolution, he opened the door, and met Hester Dethridge, face to face, in the passage.
CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIFTH.
THE SIGNS OF THE END.
THE servant, appearing the next morning in Anne’s room with the breakfast tray, closed the door with an air of mystery, and announced that strange things were going on in the house.