Even the patience of Mrs. Rubelle was getting exhausted, when I joined her at the house door.

“At last!” she said, with a shrug of her lean foreign shoulders.  She led the way into the inhabited side of the house, ascended the stairs, and opened with her key the door at the end of the passage, which communicated with the old Elizabethan rooms—­a door never previously used, in my time, at Blackwater Park.  The rooms themselves I knew well, having entered them myself on various occasions from the other side of the house.  Mrs. Rubelle stopped at the third door along the old gallery, handed me the key of it, with the key of the door of communication, and told me I should find Miss Halcombe in that room.  Before I went in I thought it desirable to make her understand that her attendance had ceased.  Accordingly, I told her in plain words that the charge of the sick lady henceforth devolved entirely on myself.

“I am glad to hear it, ma’am,” said Mrs. Rubelle.  “I want to go very much.”

“Do you leave to-day?” I asked, to make sure of her.

“Now that you have taken charge, ma’am, I leave in half an hour’s time.  Sir Percival has kindly placed at my disposition the gardener, and the chaise, whenever I want them.  I shall want them in half an hour’s time to go to the station.  I am packed up in anticipation already.  I wish you good-day, ma’am.”

She dropped a brisk curtsey, and walked back along the gallery, humming a little tune, and keeping time to it cheerfully with the nosegay in her hand.  I am sincerely thankful to say that was the last I saw of Mrs. Rubelle.

When I went into the room Miss Halcombe was asleep.  I looked at her anxiously, as she lay in the dismal, high, old-fashioned bed.  She was certainly not in any respect altered for the worse since I had seen her last.  She had not been neglected, I am bound to admit, in any way that I could perceive.  The room was dreary, and dusty, and dark, but the window (looking on a solitary court-yard at the back of the house) was opened to let in the fresh air, and all that could be done to make the place comfortable had been done.  The whole cruelty of Sir Percival’s deception had fallen on poor Lady Glyde.  The only ill-usage which either he or Mrs. Rubelle had inflicted on Miss Halcombe consisted, so far as I could see, in the first offence of hiding her away.

I stole back, leaving the sick lady still peacefully asleep, to give the gardener instructions about bringing the doctor.  I begged the man, after he had taken Mrs. Rubelle to the station, to drive round by Mr. Dawson’s, and leave a message in my name, asking him to call and see me.  I knew he would come on my account, and I knew he would remain when he found Count Fosco had left the house.

In due course of time the gardener returned, and said that he had driven round by Mr. Dawson’s residence, after leaving Mrs. Rubelle at the station.  The doctor sent me word that he was poorly in health himself, but that he would call, if possible, the next morning.