CHAPTER 12.
DR.SEWARD'S DIARY.
18 September .-- I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early.
Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone.

I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door.

After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again, still no answer.

I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hour, for it was now ten o'clock, and so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response.
Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me.

Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight round us?
Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late?
I know that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses, and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere.
I could find no means of ingress.