The Haunted Hotel / Отель с привидениями

Nothing occurred – nothing extraordinary, nothing dramatic.

The married couple walked together down the nave to the door. Doctor Wybrow drew back as they approached. To his confusion and surprise, the Countess discovered him. He heard her say to her husband, �One moment; I see a friend.’ Lord Montbarry bowed and waited. She stepped up to the Doctor, took his hand, and wrung it hard.

�One step more, you see, on the way to the end!’ She whispered those strange words, and returned to her husband.

Then Lord and Lady Montbarry stepped into their carriage, and drove away.

Outside the church door stood the three or four members of the club. They began with the Baron.

�Damned ill-looking rascal!’

They went on with Montbarry.

�Is he going to take that horrid woman with him to Ireland?’

�No! They know about Agnes Lockwood.’

�Well, but where is he going?’

�To Scotland.’

�Does she like that?’

�It’s only for a fortnight. Then they will come back to London, and go abroad.

�And they will never return to England, eh?’

�Who can tell? Did you see how she looked at Montbarry? Did you see her, Doctor?’

Doctor Wybrow remembered his patients, and walked off.

�One step more, you see, on the way to the end,’ he repeated to himself, on his way home. What end?

Chapter IV

On the day of the marriage Agnes Lockwood sat alone in the little drawing-room of her London lodgings. She was burning the letters which Montbarry had written to her.

She looked by many years younger than she really was. With her fair complexion and her shy manner, she looked like a girl, although she was now really advancing towards thirty years of age. She lived alone with an old nurse, on a modest little income which was just enough to support the two. There were no signs of grief in her face, and she slowly tore the letters of her false lover in two, and threw the pieces into the small fire. She did not cry.

The old nurse came in, and asked if she wanted to see �Master Henry,’ the youngest member of the Westwick family, who had publicly declared his contempt for his brother in the smoking-room of the club. Agnes hesitated.

A long time ago Henry Westwick said that he loved her. But she acknowledged that her heart was given to his eldest brother.