Everything that he had noticed below stairs suggested that there
was some secret purpose to be answered by getting Allan to sleep
in the Sanitarium. Everything that he had noticed above stairs
associated the lurking-place in which the danger lay hid with
Allan's room. To reach this conclusion, and to decide on baffling
the conspiracy, whatever it might be, by taking Allan's place,
was with Midwinter the work of an instant. Confronted by actual
peril, the great nature of the man intuitively freed itself
from the weaknesses that had beset it in happier and safer times.
Not even the shadow of the old superstition rested on his mind
now--no fatalist suspicion of himself disturbed the steady
resolution that was in him. The one last doubt that troubled him,
as he stood at the window thinking, was the doubt whether he
could persuade Allan to change rooms with him, without involving
himself in an explanation which might lead Allan to suspect the
truth.
In the minute that elapsed, while he waited with his eyes on
the room, the doubt was resolved--he found the trivial, yet
sufficient, excuse of which he was in search. Mr. Bashwood saw
him rouse himself and go to the door.
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