The Living Mummy by Ambrose Pratt — Read

I expected Miss Ottley next afternoon, and Hubbard, as though aware I wished to be alone, went out soon after three. But she did not come. Hubbard returned an hour after midnight. He kept me awake by tramping about his room until far into the small hours. Next morning I found the library filled with corded boxes and Hubbard's man padlocking the last of them. "Master's gone to France, and I'm to follow," he announced with an air of suppressed exultation. "He left this letter for you."

The letter contained these lines: "I know you at length for the cunning scamp you are. How you must have laughed at me. But I forgive you. We shall be away a year, at least. As always, everything I have is yours. Let us find you here on our return. I cannot write more. My heart is too full. Pinsent, she loves me! D. H." The last three words were deeply underlined. By the end of that week I had completed the revision of my book and forwarded the manuscript to Mr. Coen. Afterwards, I was uncomfortably lonely and unoccupied. I waited in from three to five every afternoon, but no one came. The rest of the days I spent wandering about the streets nursing the long sickness of too much thinking. The end of it was, I disobeyed Miss Ottley and went one afternoon to call on her. I might as well have saved myself the trouble. She was "out," likewise her father and Dr. Belleville. Two days later I called again.