CHAPTER XVIII.

AFTER THE VISITOR'S DEPARTURE.

If ever the signs of misery, of despair, of terror, were depicted on a human face, they were on Dr. Davenal's as he sat that night in his study. He was as a man who has received some great shock; a shock that strikes a species of paralysis alike to the heart and to the frame. His arms hung down listlessly, his head was bent, his fixed eyes had a wild anxious look, most foreign to the usually calm orbs of the composed surgeon. An hour and a quarter had he thus sat since the departure of that midnight visitor who had brought with him so much apparent mystery, so much woe, and the house clock was striking one. The sound did not arouse Dr. Davenal; he sat on with his face of terrified despair.

The wax taper, unheeded, unlooked at, stood on a side-table where it had been accidentally put. It had burnt nearly to the socket, and it now began to spurt and gutter with a great light; the signs of its end. That awoke Dr. Davenal from his reverie. The prospect of being left in the dark was not a convenient one; and he tore a bit of paper from a journal lying near and essayed to light the gas, completely forgetting that it had been turned off at the main.

Finding his mistake, he stood a moment with his hand to his temples, as if endeavouring to collect thought, and then opened the door of his bedroom. Candles always stood there on the mantelpiece ready for lighting, and he brought one forward and succeeded in catching a light for it from the dying taper.

This had the effect of effectually arousing him. He looked at his watch, and then held the candle to a book-shelf, whence he selected a local railway guide, and sat down to the table to consult it.

"Nothing until the morning!" he exclaimed in a tone that might have been one of vexation but for its deeper pain. "Stay, though! Yes, there is. There's the train that passes here at 3.20 for Merton: and I should find a train on from thence. Then I must go by it: there's no time to be lost, once the morrow has dawned, if this unhappy business is to be suppressed. Twenty minutes past three; and now it is one; I can lie down for an hour and a half."

He went at once into his bedroom, took off his coat, and lay down on the outside of the bed. There was no fear of his oversleeping himself; sleep for a troubled mind in its first shock, troubled as was Dr. Davenal's, is out of the question.

Rest also seemed to be. He could not lie. He tossed and turned on the uneasy counterpane, and finally sprang off it with a wail of agony, and took to pacing the room. Neal, who was regaling his ear at the chamber door, could hear every footfall of the slippers, every groan of the distressed heart. Never more, never more in this world, would the heart of Richard Davenal lose its care.

Neal was not in the habit, with all his ferreting propensities, of sitting up at night to pursue them; but this night was an exceptional one. To say that Neal had been astonished, confounded at what had taken place, at the knowledge he believed he had acquired, would be saying little, in comparison with its effect upon his mind. He did not love his master; he did not like him; it may not be going too far to say that he hated him; for Neal's instinct had taught him that his master partially saw through him, partially suspected him to be the villain that he was; but to believe him capable of deliberately destroying one of his patients, was in truth almost too great a stretch for even Neal. Until that night, Neal could not have believed him capable of any wrong act: he gave him credit, for he could not help doing so, for his honour and his virtues, while he disliked him: but he did in truth now believe that Dr. Davenal had wilfully killed Lady Oswald. That is, that he had given her the chloroform deliberately, knowing it would probably take her life.

The faintest possible doubt of this had been first caught from the words of Parkins. Not real doubt, but a sort of angry feeling of the extreme imprudence of the doctor in having given it: Neal no more believed then that Dr. Davenal had done it, or was capable of doing it, than he could have believed the most monstrous improbability in the world. Still the _idea_ had been admitted: and when that strange visitor was with his master afterwards, and Neal heard, with his own ears, the suspicious words that fell, he could put upon them but one interpretation--that, incredible as it seemed, his master _was_ guilty, and not unintentionally, of the death of Lady Oswald. Neal hoped to arrive at the why and the wherefore, and he thought nothing of sitting up the night to do it: if by that means he might gain any satisfactory solution. Neal, it must be confessed, was utterly stunned with the affair, with the belief; and could hot see or understand yet with any clearness: like a man who is struck violently on the head, and looks around him in stupid helpless maze, as if he had a dead wall before him. A shock to the head and a shock to the mind will bear for the passing moment the same apparent result.

Dr. Davenal paced his room, his two rooms in fact, for the door was open between them, and he passed from one to the other in his restless wanderings, his mental agony. Soon after two he began to wash and dress himself; that is, he changed some of his clothes, and poured out a wash-hand basin of cold water and splashed his face with it. He put on a pair of boots; he searched for his gloves; he looked out an overcoat; and then he stood for a few minutes and thought.

Lifting the writing-desk from underneath the table, where you may remember it was kept, he unlocked it, and was for some little time examining certain papers it contained. Some of these he put in his pocket, and then he locked the desk and replaced it. Next he sat down to write a note; just a line or two.

It was getting on past the half-hour then. He opened the door and went forth from his room. Neal, who had heard him coming, peeped from his pantry and saw him turn to the stairs, the candle in one hand, a note held in the other. Neal cautiously stole forward a step or two, and looked and listened.

He was downstairs again instantly; he had only gone to the first floor, and had not opened any door, or Neal must have heard it: had not, in fact, been long enough to open one. The note was gone from his hand, and Neal wondered where he had left it.

He went into the study, and came out without the light, an overcoat on, and his hat in his hand. The moonlight shone in now through the fan-light over the front door, and Neal could see so much. He appeared to be coming towards the pantry; Neal silently closed the door and slipped the noiseless bolt. Neal took very good care to keep his own locks and bolts well oiled.

Dr. Davenal essayed to open the pantry-door and found it fastened. He shook it, knocked at it, not over gently. Neal, too great a diplomatist to be taken at a loss, flung off his coat, waistcoat, and slippers, threw back his braces, rumpled his hair, and opened the door to his master with the air of a man just aroused from his bed.

"Why do you sleep with the door locked, Neal?"--and the question was put in an imperative tone.

"I--it is but very rare that I do, sir. I must have shot the bolt last night without thinking of it."

"I won't have it done. Nobody shall sleep in my house with a locked door. It is a dangerous habit. Were a fire to take place, and the sleeper a heavy one, he might not be aroused in time. Don't do it again. Neal," he continued, changing his tone, "I am summoned out farther away than usual. I don't care to disturb Miss Davenal--you can tell them tomorrow morning. I shall not be home all day."

"Have you to go far, sir?" inquired Neal.

"Yes. I don't expect to be home all day, I tell you, and that's why I bid you inform them. Nobody is to sit up for me tomorrow night; I may be detained longer. Tell Miss Davenal so."

"Very well, sir," replied Neal. "Is the carriage ready for you?"

Neal put this cunningly. He felt sure his master was not going in the carriage.

"I don't require the carriage. That's all, Neal; you can go to bed again. I was obliged to disturb you."

Dr. Davenal turned, walked straight to the front door, and let himself out at it, closing it securely after him. Neal waited a moment, rearranged his attire a little, and then stepped also to the front door and drew the heavy bolt across it. No danger now of his master's coming in with his latch-key to pounce upon him.

Neal got a light, went into the study, and took a leisurely survey. He was scarcely rewarded. There was nothing whatever about, more than on other mornings: no signs remained of the stranger's visit, not a trace that could betray any disturbance on the part of Dr. Davenal. The sherry and biscuits were put up: Neal walked across to the dining-room and found them in the sideboard, just as he had left them on the previous night. The glass, used, stood on it. Neal solaced himself with some of the sherry, and went back to the study.

The old cloth was undisturbed on the table, the blotting-book and inkstand lying on it. Neal looked through the book, but received no satisfaction. He examined the pens, and saw that in one the ink was not yet dry. In the bedroom the clothes which his master had taken off lay about; Mr. Neal _en passant_ visited the pockets and found them empty; and the bed was pressed on the outside, but had not been slept in. That curious visit in the night might have been a dream, for all there was left to tell of it.

"But there's that note yet," thought Neal. "What did he take it upstairs for, and where did he leave it?"

Stealing up the stairs in his stockinged feet, shading the light in his hand, Neal came to the vestibule, and looked on the table. He looked on the stand which held a beautiful statue in marble, he looked up even at the frames of the pictures; he looked everywhere. But there was no letter.

"I'm positive he did not stop long enough to open a door!" ejaculated Neal, rather at a nonplus.

A bright thought struck him. He bent down, shading still the light with his hand, and peered under Miss Sara Davenal's door. And then came Neal's reward. He saw the corner of something white quite close to him, not pushed entirely beyond the door. Dr. Davenal, not to disturb his daughter, had pushed his letter to her in that way.

Neal took out his penknife, and, with its help, by dint of perseverance and ingenuity, succeeded in drawing back the note, which he stole downstairs with, and into his own chamber. A little more ingenuity with the penknife, and the envelope, not yet fully dry, came open. Neal had obtained an insight into some secrets in his life, but never one so weighty as this, never one had touched on that ugly word "murder" which was running through Neal's mind: and his usually impassive face grew streaked with scarlet in excitement.

"My Dear Child,

"Business connected with this most unhappy secret obliges me to go out for a day, perhaps two. I shall leave a message with Neal. Do not appear to know anything when he delivers it: hear it as though you were a stranger to everything. Don't talk of my absence to any one if you can help it. People will conclude I have gone to see some patient at a distance, as will your aunt: it is not necessary to undeceive them. R. D."

There was not so very much to be made out of that, and the scarlet streaks faded again from Neal's disappointed face. "This most unhappy secret," he repeated over twice, as if the words bore some euphonious sound. Whatever it might be, the secret, it was evident that Miss Sara Davenal had been made cognisant of it; and Neal rather rejoiced in the pill it must be for her, for he liked his young mistress not one whit better than he liked his master. He read the note again, refastened it in the envelope, stole upstairs to push it under the door, and then retired to his late bed.