I went into the consulting-room, and read the backs of the medical books ranged round the walls, and found a volume that interested me. There was such curious information in it that I amused myself by making extracts, using the first sheets of paper that I could find. They had printed directions at the top, which showed that the doctor was accustomed to write his prescriptions on them. We had many, too many, of his prescriptions in our house.
The servant’s doubts of my patience proved to have been well founded. I got tired of waiting, and went home before the doctor returned.
From morning to night, nothing has been seen of Mrs. Tenbruggen to-day. Nor has any apology for her neglect of us been received, fond as she is of writing little notes. Has that story in my Diary driven her away? Let me see what to-morrow may bring forth.
To-day has brought forth—nothing. Mrs. Tenbruggen still keeps away from us. It looks as if my Diary had something to do with the mystery of her absence.
I am not in good spirits to-day. My nerves—if I have such things, which is more than I know by my own experience—have been a little shaken by a horrid dream. The medical information, which my thirst for knowledge absorbed in the doctor’s consulting-room, turned traitor—armed itself with the grotesque horrors of nightmare—and so thoroughly frightened me that I was on the point of being foolish enough to destroy my notes. I thought better of it, and my notes are safe under lock and key.
Mr. Philip Dunboyne is trying to pave the way for his flight from this house. He speaks of friends in London, whose interest will help him to find the employment which is the object of his ambition. “In a few days more,” he said, “I shall ask for leave of absence.”
Instead of looking at me, his eyes wandered to the window; his fingers played restlessly with his watch-chain while he spoke. I thought I would give him a chance, a last chance, of making the atonement that he owes to me. This shows shameful weakness, on my part. Does my own resolution startle me? Or does the wretch appeal—to what? To my pity? It cannot be my love; I am positively sure that I hate him. Well, I am not the first girl who had been an unanswerable riddle to herself.
“Is there any other motive for your departure?” I asked.
“What other motive can there be?” he replied. I put what I had to say to him in plainer words still. “Tell me, Philip, are you beginning to wish that you were a free man again?”
He still prevaricated. Was this because he is afraid of me, or because he is not quite brute enough to insult me to my face? I tried again for the third and last time. I almost put the words into his mouth.