"This ruin is
uninhabited. I saw the empty rooms, through gaps in the broken wall as
we came up that staircase. Where is my husband?"
"At Raynham Castle, Lady Eversleigh, to the best of my knowledge,"
answered the surgeon, with imperturbable calmness.
He had seated himself on one of the broken battlements, in a lounging
attitude, with one arm leaning on the ruined stone, and he was looking
quietly out at the solitary expanse of barren waste sleeping beneath
the moonlight.
Lady Eversleigh looked at him with a countenance that had grown rigid
with horror and alarm.
"My husband at Raynham--at Raynham!" she repeated, as if she could not
credit the evidence of her own ears. "Am I mad, or are you mad, Mr.
Carrington? My husband at Raynham Castle, you say?"
"I cannot undertake to answer positively for the movements of any
gentleman; but I should say that, at this present moment, Sir Oswald
Eversleigh is in his own house, for which he started some hours ago."
"Then why am I here?"
"To answer that question clearly will involve the telling of a long
story, Lady Eversleigh," answered Victor. "My motive for bringing you
here concerns myself and another person. You are here to farther the
interests of two people, and those two people are Reginald Eversleigh
and your humble servant."
"But the accident? Sir Oswald's danger--"
"I must beg you not to give yourself any further alarm on that subject.
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