Being a bachelor with outdoor tastes and an easygoing
disposition, it was not at all impossible to understand his choosing the
estate of his family to settle down on, isolated though it was. Certainly
one could not honestly charge it against him as a suspicious
circumstance.
By far the most interesting discovery was his obvious dislike to Mr.
O'Brien. Not once but several times he had shown it in the course of our
talk. He conveyed the suggestion moreover that the man had oppressed him
in some way and that it was a relief to have got rid of him. In view of
the fact that he had been so anxious to secure another resident patient,
this seemed a little odd, and a theory began to take shape in my mind.
Supposing O'Brien had in some way induced the doctor unwillingly to abet
a treasonable scheme, that would account for his feelings very well,
especially looking to O'Brien's unpleasing personality. But on the other
hand, events had made it clear that treason was going on without O'Brien,
so how could the doctor have got clear of it? And if he were still in it,
this theory of his relations to his late patient was manifestly weak.
"To bed!" said Thomas Sylvester to himself, after an hour of these
reflections. "You are theorizing too soon."
In the morning he was up betimes and downstairs a good ten minutes
before he knew the doctor was likely to appear.
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