"What does it mean?" he asked
himself; "surely she died in this room!"
He went hurriedly to his wife's room. They had taken Charlotte there,
perhaps, shortly before her death. Some feverish fancy might have
possessed her with the desire to be taken thither.
He opened the door and went in; but here again all was blank and empty.
The room was arranged after its usual fashion; but of his wife's presence
there was no token. His sense of mystification and bewilderment grew
suddenly into a sense of fear. What did it mean? What hellish fooling had
he been the dupe of?
He went to Diana's room. That, too, was empty. A trunk and a portmanteau,
covered and strapped as if for removal, occupied the centre of the room.
There was no other room upon this floor. Above this floor there were only
the rooms of the servants.
He went downstairs to the dining-room and rang the bell The parlour-maid
came in answer to his summons.
"Where is your mistress?" he asked.
"Gone out, sir; she went at eight o'clock this morning. And O, if you
please, sir, Dr. Jedd called, and said I was to give you this--with the
certificate."
The certificate! Yes, the certificate of Charlotte Halliday's death,--the
certificate which he must produce to-morrow, with other evidence, for the
satisfaction of the bill-discounter and his legal adviser. He stared at
the girl, still possessed by the sense of bewilderment which had come
upon him on seeing those empty rooms upstairs.
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