The Haunted Hotel | Page 7

For the last time,
sir, what am I--a demon who has seen the avenging angel? or only a
poor mad woman, misled by the delusion of a deranged mind?'
Doctor Wybrow rose from his chair, determined to close the interview.
He was strongly and painfully impressed by what he had heard. The
longer he had listened to her, the more irresistibly the conviction of the
woman's wickedness had forced itself on him. He tried vainly to think
of her as a person to be pitied--a person with a morbidly sensitive
imagination, conscious of the capacities for evil which lie dormant in
us all, and striving earnestly to open her heart to the counter-influence
of her own better nature; the effort was beyond him. A perverse instinct
in him said, as if in words, Beware how you believe in her!
'I have already given you my opinion,' he said. 'There is no sign of your
intellect being deranged, or being likely to be deranged, that medical
science can discover--as I understand it. As for the impressions you
have confided to me, I can only say that yours is a case (as I venture to
think) for spiritual rather than for medical advice. Of one thing be
assured: what you have said to me in this room shall not pass out of it.
Your confession is safe in my keeping.'
She heard him, with a certain dogged resignation, to the end.
'Is that all?' she asked.

'That is all,' he answered.
She put a little paper packet of money on the table. 'Thank you, sir.
There is your fee.'
With those words she rose. Her wild black eyes looked upward, with an
expression of despair so defiant and so horrible in its silent agony that
the Doctor turned away his head, unable to endure the sight of it. The
bare idea of taking anything from her--not money only, but anything
even that she had touched--suddenly revolted him. Still without looking
at her, he said, 'Take it back; I don't want my fee.'
She neither heeded nor heard him. Still looking upward, she said
slowly to herself, 'Let the end come. I have done with the struggle: I
submit.'
She drew her veil over her face, bowed to the Doctor, and left the room.
He rang the bell, and followed her into the hall. As the servant closed
the door on her, a sudden impulse of curiosity-- utterly unworthy of
him, and at the same time utterly irresistible-- sprang up in the Doctor's
mind. Blushing like a boy, he said to the servant, 'Follow her home, and
find out her name.' For one moment the man looked at his master,
doubting if his own ears had not deceived him. Doctor Wybrow looked
back at him in silence. The submissive servant knew what that silence
meant--he took his hat and hurried into the street.
The Doctor went back to the consulting-room. A sudden revulsion of
feeling swept over his mind. Had the woman left an infection of
wickedness in the house, and had he caught it? What devil had
possessed him to degrade himself in the eyes of his own servant? He
had behaved infamously--he had asked an honest man, a man who had
served him faithfully for years, to turn spy! Stung by the bare thought
of it, he ran out into the hall again, and opened the door. The servant
had disappeared; it was too late to call him back. But one refuge from
his contempt for himself was now open to him-- the refuge of work. He
got into his carriage and went his rounds among his patients.

If the famous physician could have shaken his own reputation, he
would have done it that afternoon. Never before had he made himself
so little welcome at the bedside. Never before had he put off until
to-morrow the prescription which ought to have been written, the
opinion which ought to have been given, to-day. He went home earlier
than usual--unutterably dissatisfied with himself.
The servant had returned. Dr. Wybrow was ashamed to question him.
The man reported the result of his errand, without waiting to be asked.
'The lady's name is the Countess Narona. She lives at--'
Without waiting to hear where she lived, the Doctor acknowledged the
all-important discovery of her name by a silent bend of the head, and
entered his consulting-room. The fee that he had vainly refused still lay
in its little white paper covering on the table. He sealed it up in an
envelope; addressed it to the 'Poor-box' of the nearest police-court; and,
calling the servant in, directed him to take it to the magistrate the next
morning. Faithful to his duties, the servant waited to ask the customary
question, 'Do you dine at home to-day, sir?'
After a