Chapter Twelve.
Mr Richard Dawson.
I confess that I was longing for the appearance of this one-eyed Englishman of whom Mabel Blair was evidently so terrified, in order to judge him for myself.
What I had gathered concerning him was, up to the present, by no means satisfactory. That, in common with the monk, he held the secret of the dead man’s past seemed practically certain, and perhaps Mabel feared some unwelcome revelation concerning her father’s actions and the source of his wealth. This was the thought which occurred to me when, having raised the alarm which brought the faithful companion, Mrs Percival, I was assisting to apply restoratives to the insensible girl.
As she lay, her head pillowed upon a cushion of daffodil silk, Mrs Percival knelt beside her, and, being in ignorance, held me, I think, in considerable suspicion. She inquired rather sharply the reason of Mabel’s unconsciousness, but I merely replied that she had been seized with a sudden faintness, and attributed it to the overheating of the room.
Presently, when she came to, she asked Mrs Percival and her maid Bowers to leave us alone, and after the door had shut she inquired, pale-faced and anxious—
“When is this man Dawson to come here?”
“When Mr Leighton gives him notice of the clause in your father’s will.”
“He can come here,” she said determinedly, “but before he crosses this threshold, I shall leave the house. He may act just as he thinks proper, but I will not reside under the same roof with him, nor will I have any communication with him whatsoever.”
“I quite understand your feelings, Mabel,” I said. “But is such a course a judicious one? Will it not be best to wait and watch the fellow’s movements?”