The cab was waiting at the gates as Miss Gwilt approached the
Sanitarium. Mr. Bashwood got out and advanced to meet her. She
took his arm and led him aside a few steps, out of the cabman's
hearing.
"Think what you like of me," she said, keeping her thick black
veil down over her face, "but don't speak to me to-night. Drive
back to your hotel as if nothing had happened. Meet the tidal
train to-morrow as usual, and come to me afterward at the
Sanitarium. Go without a word, and I shall believe there is one
man in the world who really loves me. Stay and ask questions, and I shall bid you good-by at once and forever!"
She pointed to the cab. In a minute more it had left the
Sanitarium and was taking Mr. Bashwood back to his hotel.
She opened the iron gate and walked slowly up to the house door. A shudder ran through her as she rang the bell. She laughed bitterly. "Shivering again!" she said to herself. "Who would have thought I had so much feeling left in me?"
For once in her life the doctor's face told the truth, when
the study door opened between ten and eleven at night, and
Miss Gwilt entered the room.
"Mercy on me!" he exclaimed, with a look of the blankest
bewilderment. "What does this mean?"
"It means," she answered, "that I have decided to-night instead
of deciding to-morrow. You, who know women so well, ought to know
that they act on impulse. I am here on an impulse. Take me or
leave me, just as you like."
"Take you or leave you?" repeated the doctor, recovering his
presence of mind. "My dear lady, what a dreadful way of putting
it! Your room shall be got ready instantly! Where is your
luggage? Will you let me send for it? No? You can do without your
luggage tonight? What admirable fortitude! You will fetch it
yourself to-morrow? What extraordinary independence! Do take off
your bonnet. Do draw in to the fire! What can I offer you?"
"Offer me the strongest sleeping draught you ever made in your
life," she replied. "And leave me alone till the time comes
to take it. I shall be your patient in earnest!" she added, fiercely, as the doctor attempted to remonstrate. "I shall be the maddest of the mad if you irritate me to-night!"
The Principal of the Sanitarium became gravely and briefly
professional in an instant.
"Sit down in that dark corner," he said. "Not a soul shall
disturb you. In half an hour you will find your room ready, and your sleeping draught on the table."—"It's been a harder struggle for her than I anticipated," he thought, as he left the room, and crossed to his Dispensary on the opposite side of the hall. "Good heavens, what business has she with a conscience, after such a life as hers has been!"
The Dispensary was elaborately fitted up with all the latest
improvements in medical furniture. But one of the four walls of
the room was unoccupied by shelves, and here the vacant space was
filled by a handsome antique cabinet of carved wood, curiously
out of harmony, as an object, with the unornamented utilitarian
aspect of the place generally. On either side of the cabinet two
speaking-tubes were inserted in the wall, communicating with the
upper regions of the house, and labeled respectively "Resident
Dispenser" and "Head Nurse." Into the second of these tubes the
doctor spoke, on entering the room. An elderly woman appeared, took her orders for preparing Mrs. Armadale's bed-chamber, courtesied, and retired.
Left alone again in the Dispensary, the doctor unlocked the
center compartment of the cabinet, and disclosed a collection of
bottles inside, containing the various poisons used in medicine. After taking out the laudanum wanted for the sleeping draught, and placing it on the dispensary table, he went back to the cabinet, looked into it for a little while, shook his head doubtfully, and crossed to the open shelves on the opposite side of the room.