However, his intention was never fulfilled. For long before he reached
home he began to feel himself thoroughly ill. His was a temperament
upon which mental anxiety acts rapidly and severely; and the burning
sun, and his rapid walk, combined with rage and terror to give him
such a "turn" that, as he hurried down the lane, he found himself
reeling like a drunken man. He had just time to hurry through the
garden, and into his study, when pulse and sense failed him, and he
rolled over on the sofa in a dead faint.
Lucia had seen him come in, and heard him fall, and rushed in. The
poor little thing was at her wits' end, and thought that he had had
nothing less than a _coup-de-soleil._ And when he recovered from his
faintness, he began to be so horribly ill, that Clara, who had been
called in to help, had some grounds for the degrading hypothesis (for
which Lucia all but boxed her ears) that "Master had got away into the
woods, and gone eating toadstools, or some such poisonous stuff;" for
he lay a full half-hour on the sofa, death-cold, and almost pulseless;
moaning, shuddering, hiding his face in his hands, and refusing
cordials, medicines, and, above all, a doctor's visit.
However, this could not be allowed to last. Without Elsley's
knowledge, a messenger was despatched for Thurnall, and luckily met
him in the lane; for he was returning to the town in the footsteps of
his victim.
Elsley's horror was complete, when the door opened, and Lucia brought
in none other than his tormentor.
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