Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ... "Twice a week!" cried the patient. She made him no answer, rang her bell for Handy, and putting on her feathered hat, walked rapidly away. Yorke sat in the office a few minutes where she had left him; he looked confusedly about. It seemed to him that he was taking her up in new and unknown conditions, like the second volume of a novel. He turned the leaves with a dull uneasiness. Something in him urged, "Throw the book down!" He searched his soul for power to arise and do so. He found there only a great compulsion, as silent and as terrible as the thread in the hand of Lachesis, which he knew would bind him down to read on to the end. VII. He did not go at noon. It occurred to him in the morning that he was well enough to wait till the evening office. He dreamed away his day on the piazza, watching her as she went and came; lost in admiration of his own self-restraint, and in a, nebulous impression that it was time to take matters into a more strictly masculine control. She did not come home till eight, o'clock. The July twilight was already deepening down. Handy came up from the depths of the sawdustheap and retired from public life with Old Oak; the doctor went to her supper; and Yorke got around into the reception-room, and waited for her in the dusk. No other patients were there. Roses were in the room somewhere, -- he could not see them. The folds of the long muslin curtains drifted in the warm wind. The rows of books in the office, seen through the open door, looked fuller for the darkness. Beyond them, another door led into the doctor's private parlor. He had heard Mrs. Butterwell say that her lodger had three rooms below (" two and a half," Mrs. Butterwell called them), and one up-stairs. This other door was half open, swinging...