The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
page 15 of 242 (06%)
page 15 of 242 (06%)
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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 |
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