doctor still sitting at his table, although the clock upon the wall had just struck three; but, for once, he was not writing. All his papers were packed up into one great pile, and this he was holding in his hands, which quivered and trembled about it, and fondled it as though it were one of the little live creatures so dear to him. “It is done! it is done!” he was exclaiming, almost chanting, as Mrs. Callender entered; and she recognised the sound as that which had awaked her.
“What is done?” she asked him; but he did not answer. She could not even be certain that he was aware of her presence, for he had a singular expression, “as if he was glorying,” and, unwilling to disturb him, she made up the fire softly, and went away. She could not sleep, however; a queer restlessness, a vague feeling of uneasiness, had taken possession of her; and she got up again after awhile, and stole back to the old kitchen. The lamp seemed to have burned low; she turned it up. There sat the old doctor still, and still he clasped his papers. But they were now made up into a parcel, and his head had fallen forward on them. He was dead.
Whether it was legal or not, Mrs. Callender never knew, neither did she care; but when she found that the manuscript whose existence had been so vitally bound up with the old doctor’s, was directed to some queer address in far-off Germany, she insisted on Roger’s sending it there at once, before the constable came to take over the dead man’s affairs. He might refuse to forward it—one never knew; and forwarded at all costs it had got to be, since that was evidently the doctor’s last wish. Forwarded accordingly it was, though the postage
