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Zant seemed to understand what was passing in the mind of his guest. "No!" he said. "If the opinions of the medical men are to be trusted, the result of the illness is injury to her physical strength not injury to her mind. I have observed in her, no doubt, a certain waywardness of temper since her illness; but that is a trifle.
"He has told me of your visit; and I am anxious to know what you think of him. Do you like Mr. John Zant?" Mr. Rayburn hesitated. The careworn look appeared again in her face. "If you had felt as kindly toward him as he feels toward you," she said, "I might have gone to St. Sallins with a lighter heart." Mr. Rayburn thought of the supernatural appearances, described at the close of her narrative.
In a quarter of an hour more, Mrs. Zant was safe under his care at the hotel. THAT night a note, written by the housekeeper, was delivered to Mrs. Zant. "The doctors give little hope. The paralytic stroke is spreading upward to his face. If death spares him, he will live a helpless man. I shall take care of him to the last. As for you forget him." Mrs. Zant gave the note to Mr. Rayburn.
The company was in difficulties; Monsieur van Zant, the proprietor, could not make it pay, and it was upon the point of disbanding.
Rayburn asked detaining Mrs. Zant as he spoke. A voice which they both recognized answered gayly, from the outer side of the door: "A friend from London." "WELCOME to St. Sallins!" cried Mr. John Zant. "I knew that you were expected, my dear sir, and I took my chance at finding you at the hotel."
He went upstairs and played with Lucy; he drank an extra glass of wine at dinner; he took the child and her governess to a circus in the evening; he ate a little supper, fortified by another glass of wine, before he went to bed and still those vague forebodings of evil persisted in torturing him. Zant had assumed without any discernible reason to account for it?
"If you mean grateful to me," Mr. Rayburn remarked, "I don't quite understand " "You don't quite understand? Is it possible that you have forgotten our conversation when I first had the honor of receiving you? Look at Mrs. Zant again." Mr. Rayburn looked; and Mrs. Zant's brother-in-law explained himself. "You notice the return of her color, the healthy brightness of her eyes.
The doubt had hardly suggested itself, before it was set at rest in a most unexpected manner. Mr. Zant looked at his visitor with a bland smile, and said: "Please let me see your feet." For the moment, Mr. Rayburn lost his presence of mind. He looked at the instruments on the side-table. "Are you a corn-cutter?" was all he could say.
Rayburn's interest was concentrated on Mrs. Zant; he took no notice of the apology. "When did this happen?" he asked. "About a quarter of an hour ago. I was fortunately at home. Without speaking to me, without noticing me, she walked upstairs like a person in a dream." Mr. Rayburn suddenly pointed to Mrs. Zant. "Look at her!" he said. "There's a change!"
The one complaint I ever heard my husband make of John Zant was that he didn't come to see us often enough, after our marriage. Is there some wickedness in him which we have never suspected? It may be but how can it be? I have every reason to be grateful to the man against whom I have been supernaturally warned! His conduct to me has been always perfect.
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