Having delivered his message the gardener was about to withdraw, but I stopped him to request that he would come back before dark, and sit up that night, in one of the empty bedrooms, so as to be within call in case I wanted him.  He understood readily enough my unwillingness to be left alone all night in the most desolate part of that desolate house, and we arranged that he should come in between eight and nine.

He came punctually, and I found cause to be thankful that I had adopted the precaution of calling him in.  Before midnight Sir Percival’s strange temper broke out in the most violent and most alarming manner, and if the gardener had not been on the spot to pacify him on the instant, I am afraid to think what might have happened.

Almost all the afternoon and evening he had been walking about the house and grounds in an unsettled, excitable manner, having, in all probability, as I thought, taken an excessive quantity of wine at his solitary dinner.  However that may be, I heard his voice calling loudly and angrily in the new wing of the house, as I was taking a turn backwards and forwards along the gallery the last thing at night.  The gardener immediately ran down to him, and I closed the door of communication, to keep the alarm, if possible, from reaching Miss Halcombe’s ears.  It was full half an hour before the gardener came back.  He declared that his master was quite out of his senses—­not through the excitement of drink, as I had supposed, but through a kind of panic or frenzy of mind, for which it was impossible to account.  He had found Sir Percival walking backwards and forwards by himself in the hall, swearing, with every appearance of the most violent passion, that he would not stop another minute alone in such a dungeon as his own house, and that he would take the first stage of his journey immediately in the middle of the night.  The gardener, on approaching him, had been hunted out, with oaths and threats, to get the horse and chaise ready instantly.  In a quarter of an hour Sir Percival had joined him in the yard, had jumped into the chaise, and, lashing the horse into a gallop, had driven himself away, with his face as pale as ashes in the moonlight.  The gardener had heard him shouting and cursing at the lodge-keeper to get up and open the gate—­had heard the wheels roll furiously on again in the still night, when the gate was unlocked—­and knew no more.

The next day, or a day or two after, I forget which, the chaise was brought back from Knowlesbury, our nearest town, by the ostler at the old inn.  Sir Percival had stopped there, and had afterwards left by the train—­for what destination the man could not tell.  I never received any further information, either from himself or from any one else, of Sir Percival’s proceedings, and I am not even aware, at this moment, whether he is in England or out of it.  He and I have not met since he drove away like an escaped criminal from his own house, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that we may never meet again.