Tom Gallon - Dead Man's Love

I knew, moreover, that he was a dangerous man, by reason of the fact that he was chronically in want of money, and had never hesitated as to the methods employed to obtain it. However, there was no help for it now; the murder was out, and I could only trust to that extraordinary luck that had befriended me up to the present.

I walked with him out into the grounds, and he shook hands with me at parting, with some cordiality. "You have had a miraculous escape, dear boy," he said, in his jovial fashion, "and you are quite a little romance in yourself. I shall watch your career with interest. And you have nothing to fear – I shall be as silent as the grave in which you ought to be lying."

He laughed noisily at that grim jest, and took his way down the road in the direction of London. I went back into the house and went to my room, and slept heavily until late the next morning.

The doctor had left the house when I went down to breakfast, and I had a dim hope that I might see the girl alone. But she did not put in an appearance, nor did I see anything of her until the evening, when the doctor had returned, and the three of us sat down to dinner. I had been roaming desolately about the grounds, smoking the doctor's cigars, and inwardly wondering what I was going to do with the rest of the life that had been miraculously given back to me; and I did not know at what hour Bardolph Just had returned. Yet I had a feeling that there had been some strange interview between the doctor and the girl before I had come upon the scene – and a stormy interview at that. Bardolph Just sat at his end of the table, grim and silent, with his brows contracted, and with his habitual smile gone from his lips; the girl sat white and silent, sipping a little wine, but touching no food. During the course of a melancholy meal no single word was heard in the room, for the doctor did not even address the servants.

At the end of the meal, however, when the girl rose to quit the room, the doctor rose also, and barred her way. "Stop!" he said quickly. "I've got to speak to you. We'll have this matter cleared up – once and for all."

"I have nothing more to say," she replied, looking at him steadily. "My answer is what it has always been – No!"

"You can go, John New," said the man harshly, turning towards me. "I want to talk to Miss Matchwick alone."

"No, no!" exclaimed the girl, stretching out her hands towards me; and on the instant I stopped on my way to the door, and faced about.

But the doctor took a quick step towards me, and opened the door, and jerked his head towards the hall. "I am master here," he said. "Go!"

I saw that I should not mend matters by remaining, but I determined to be within call. I passed quickly along the hall after the door was closed; I knew that just within the great hall door itself was another smaller door, opening to a verandah which ran round the front of the dining-room windows, on the old-fashioned early Victorian model. I knew that the windows were open, and I thought that I might by good fortune both see and hear what went on in the room.

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