Read "The Postmaster of Market Deignton" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Two days pass, two wearisome, uneventful days, during which I have nothing to do but to sell Her Majesty's stamps and dispense my drugs, and keep myself from going mad as best I may. My visitor does not return or show any further interest in my doings. I am left with just the memory of that brief hour alternately to depress and excite me, and although I know I do best by playing a purely passive part, the monotony of it has suddenly become almost sickening.
The first break comes on the afternoon of the third day. About three o'clock a carriage and luggage cart from the Court go by towards the station, and it chances that I am at my sitting-room window when they return. The cart is well filled with trunks, and a smart-looking maid is seated by the driver. The carriage which follows passes so swiftly that I catch only a momentary view of its solitary occupant, just a side-glance of a girl dressed in black, with pale face and clear features. But even that glance reveals her identity to me, and I know that the omission of that single word in Lady Deignton's telegram has brought her stepdaughter home. It is I who have done it! It is through me that she is here! Shall I be the gainer, I wonder? We shall see.