He said he should bring the lady to see the place, and asked me
particularly if I was always at hand, in case he should come tolerably
early in the morning."
"Oh!" was my comment, and I walked into the dining-room, wondering what
the meaning of this new move might be; for Mrs. Stott had described, to
the best of her ability, the man who stood watching our offices in
London; and--good heavens!--yes, the man I had encountered in the lane
leading to River Hall, when I went to the Uninhabited House, after
Colonel Morris' departure.
"That is the man," thought I, "and he has some close, and deep, and
secret interest in the mystery associated with this place, the origin of
which I must discover."
Having arrived at this conclusion, I went to bed, for I had caught a bad
cold, and was aching from head to foot, and had been sleeping ill, and
hoped to secure a good night's rest.
I slept, it is true, but as for rest, I might as well, or better, have
been awake. I fell from one dream into another; found myself wandering
through impossible places; started in an agony of fear, and then dozed
again, only to plunge into some deeper quagmire of trouble; and through
all there was a vague feeling I was pursuing a person who eluded all my
efforts to find him; playing a terrible game of hide-and-seek with a man
who always slipped away from my touch, panting up mountains and running
down declivities after one who had better wind and faster legs than I;
peering out into the darkness, to catch a sight of a vague figure
standing somewhere in the shadow, and looking, with the sun streaming
into my eyes and blinding me, adown long white roads filled with a
multitude of people, straining my sight to catch a sight of the coming
traveller, who yet never came.
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