To the general rule, however, my love was an exception. Times without number had she declared her anxiety to settle in the country; for, being country born and bred, she was an excellent horsewoman, and in every essential a thorough English girl of the Grass Country, fond of a run with either fox or otter hounds; therefore, in suburban life at Kew, she had been entirely out of her element.
In that letter I wrote, composing it slowly and carefully—for like most medical men I am a bad hand at literary composition—I sought her forgiveness, and asked for an immediate interview. The wisdom of being so precipitous never occurred to me. I only know that in those night hours over my pipe I resolved to forget once and for all that letter I had discovered among the “dead” man’s effects, and determined that, while I sought reconciliation with Ethelwynn, I would keep an open and watchful eye upon Mary and her fellow conspirator.
The suggestion that Ethelwynn, believing herself forsaken, had accepted the declarations of a man she considered more worthy than myself, lashed me to a frenzy of madness. He should never have her, whoever he might be. She had been mine, and should remain so, come what might. I added a postscript, asking her to wire me permission to travel down to Hereford to see her; then, sealing up the letter, I went out along the Marylebone Road and posted it in the pillar-box, which I knew was cleared at five o’clock in the morning.
It was then about three o’clock, calm, but rather overcast. The Marylebone Road had at last become hushed in silence. Wagons and cabs had both ceased, and save for a solitary policeman here and there the long thoroughfare, so full of traffic by day, was utterly deserted. I retraced my steps slowly towards the corner of Harley Street, and was about to open the door of the house wherein I had “diggings” when I heard a light, hurried footstep behind me, and turning, confronted the figure of a slim woman of middle height wearing a golf cape, the hood of which had been thrown over her head in lieu of a hat.
“Excuse me, sir,” she cried, in a breathless voice, “but are you Doctor Boyd?”
I replied that such was my name.
“Oh, I’m in such distress,” she said, in the tone of one whose heart is full of anguish. “My poor father!”
“Is your father ill?” I inquired, turning from the door and looking full at her. I was standing on the step, and she was on the pavement, having evidently approached from the opposite direction. She stood with her back to the street lamp, so I could discern nothing of her features. Only her voice told me that she was young.
“Oh, he’s very ill,” she replied anxiously. “He was taken queer at eleven o’clock, but he wouldn’t hear of me coming to you. He’s one of those men who don’t like doctors.”
“Ah!” I remarked; “there are many of his sort about. But they are compelled to seek our aid now and then. Well, what can I do for you? I suppose you want me to see him—eh?”