“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her
to-morrow. Give me till after then.”
“O, you perfect saint!”
“I promise absolutely nothing.”
“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint
Anthony.”
“Hey!”
“I mean as a Christian woman should.”
“O! that explains it.”
The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was
snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.
“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,
though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”
She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up
the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by
the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was
something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk
which transmitted it.
I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was
something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and
quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to
greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as
stone.
I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I
went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human
strength of my own.
“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”
She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.
“I am very sorry.”
“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new
machine suit either?”