“Dreary indeed!  How did it end?  Did you get into the garden?”

“Yes—­at the second attempt.  She seemed suddenly to change her mind; she opened the door for me herself.  Passing the window of the room in which I had left her, I looked back.  She had taken her place, at a table before the window, apparently watching for what might happen.  There was something about her, as her eyes met mine (I can’t say what), which made me feel uneasy at the time.  Adopting your view, I am almost inclined to think now, horrid as the idea is, that she had the expectation of seeing me treated as she had been treated in former days.  It was actually a relief to me—­though I knew I was going to run a serious risk—­to lose sight of her.  As I got nearer to the men in the garden, I heard two of them talking very earnestly to Geoffrey Delamayn.  The fourth person, an elderly gentleman, stood apart from the rest at some little distance.  I kept as far as I could out of sight, waiting till the talk was over.  It was impossible for me to help hearing it.  The two men were trying to persuade Geoffrey Delamayn to speak to the elderly gentleman.  They pointed to him as a famous medical man.  They reiterated over and over again, that his opinion was well worth having—­”

Sir Patrick interrupted her.  “Did they mention his name?” he asked.

“Yes.  They called him Mr. Speedwell.”

“The man himself!  This is even more interesting, Miss Silvester, than you suppose.  I myself heard Mr. Speedwell warn Delamayn that he was in broken health, when we were visiting together at Windygates House last month.  Did he do as the other men wished him?  Did he speak to the surgeon?”

“No.  He sulkily refused—­he remembered what you remember.  He said, ’See the man who told me I was broken down?—­not I!’ After confirming it with an oath, he turned away from the others.  Unfortunately, he took the direction in which I was standing, and discovered me.  The bare sight of me seemed to throw him instantly into a state of frenzy.  He—­it is impossible for me to repeat the language that he used:  it is bad enough to have heard it.  I believe, Sir Patrick, but for the two men, who ran up and laid hold of him, that Hester Dethridge would have seen what she expected to see.  The change in him was so frightful—­even to me, well as I thought I knew him in his fits of passion—­I tremble when I think of it.  One of the men who had restrained him was almost as brutal, in his way.  He declared, in the foulest language, that if Delamayn had a fit, he would lose the race, and that I should be answerable for it.  But for Mr. Speedwell, I don’t know what I should have done.  He came forward directly.  ‘This is no place either for you, or for me,’ he said—­and gave me his arm, and led me back to the house.  Hester Dethridge met us in the passage, and lifted her hand to stop me.  Mr. Speedwell asked her what she wanted.  She looked at me, and then looked toward the garden,