There was nothing left to suggest. Young and inexperienced as she was, how (I asked) had she contrived to think of all this? She answered, simply “I’m sure I don’t know; my thoughts came to me while I was looking at Philip.”
Soon afterward I found an opportunity of inquiring if Helena had left the house. She had just rung her bell; and Maria had found her, quietly reading, in her room. Hours afterward, when I was on the watch at night, I heard Philip’s door softly tried from the outside. Her dreadful purpose had not been given up, even yet.
The doctor came in the evening, as he had promised, and found an improvement in Philip’s health. I mentioned what precautions we had taken, and that they had been devised by Euneece. “Are you going to withdraw from the case?” I asked. “I am coming back to the case,” he answered, “to-morrow morning.”
It had been a disappointment to me to receive no answer to the telegram which I had sent to Mr. Dunboyne the elder. The next day’s post brought the explanation in a letter to Philip from his father, directed to him at the hotel here. This showed that my telegram, giving my address at this house, had not been received. Mr. Dunboyne announced that he had returned to Ireland, finding the air of London unendurable, after the sea-breezes at home. If Philip had already married, his father would leave him to a life of genteel poverty with Helena Gracedieu. If he had thought better of it, his welcome was waiting for him.
Little did Mr. Dunboyne know what changes had taken place since he and his son had last met, and what hope might yet present itself of brighter days for poor Euneece! I thought of writing to him. But how would that crabbed old man receive a confidential letter from a lady who was a stranger?
My doubts were set at rest by Philip himself. He asked me to write a few lines of reply to his father; declaring that his marriage with Helena was broken off—that he had not given up all hope of being permitted to offer the sincere expression of his penitence to Euneece—and that he would gladly claim his welcome, as soon as he was well enough to undertake the journey to Ireland. When he had signed the letter, I was so pleased that I made a smart remark. I said: “This is a treaty of peace between father and son.”
When the doctor arrived in the morning, and found the change for the better in his patient confirmed, he did justice to us at last. He spoke kindly, and even gratefully, to Euneece. No more allusions to the hospital as a place of safety escaped him. He asked me cautiously for news of Helena. I could only tell him that she had gone out at her customary time, and had returned at her customary time. He did not attempt to conceal that my reply had made him uneasy.
“Are you still afraid that she may succeed in poisoning Philip?” I asked.
“I am afraid of her cunning,” he said. “If she is charged with attempting to poison young Dunboyne, she has some system of defense, you may rely on it, for which we are not prepared. There, in my opinion, is the true reason for her extraordinary insensibility to her own danger.”
Two more days passed, and we were still safe under the protection of lock and key.