CHAPTER XXX

MRS. KEITH AND HER CORRESPONDENT

TWO or three evenings later Mrs. Keith stood at her open bedroom window. Giles, before her return, had invited to dinner the Vicar and Dr. Wallace. She always set herself against attentions being paid to the doctor; but once in a while Giles put his foot down. He had done so now, and she had to give in. Mr. Dugdale also was coming.

She was in one of her restless moods; frequent moods of late. She had dressed early and dismissed her maid, planning a time alone. When successful, she wished she had failed.

Solitude was abhorrent to her; yet she did not go down. Difficulties had to be faced. At any moment they might assume an acute form, and it was needful to consider how she should meet the danger. She lived on the edge of a volcano.

After years of immunity from fear, of running away from conscience, of shutting her eyes to realities, she found herself in a net of her own weaving. Less and less, as weeks went by, could she see her way out. Knot after knot was being tied, so it seemed to her, by a relentless hand. More truly, she had herself fastened those knots in the past; and the net had ever since imprisoned her, though so loosely that she could ignore its existence. Now that unseen hand was tightening it.

She could not escape. No loophole presented itself. One mode she did know—the mode of the "Gordian knot." But from that she shrank with loathing.

"I would sooner die!" she said, setting her teeth; and she failed to see, as in Switzerland she had seen, what such a death must mean. She clenched her hand. "He must not come! He shall not come!"

A letter had arrived that afternoon, not in the ordinary way, but forwarded under cover from her London bankers, being marked "Immediate." It was written by one whom she ought to have welcomed to Castle Hill; whom, for no fault of his own, she was determined to keep away. The writer, in a tone of grave remonstrance, argued against this resolve, trying to make it clear that she wronged herself and him.

"He shall 'not' come!" she repeated aloud, with energy.

She turned from the window, through which blew a cold breeze. There were lights on the table; and she drew from her pocket two envelopes. With impatient fingers she took out a sheet, found it to be the one she did not want, and drew forth the other, which she read, not for the second or third time.

"He ought to be sure that I would not act so without reason. He ought to understand. My motives are no concern of his! I told him it had to be; and that should be enough. After all these years, what can it signify? At any cost, stay away he 'must!'"

Standing before the mirror, in her brocaded silk, she knew what his arrival on the scene would mean. She saw him come in; pictured the faces around; heard the inevitable exclamations; realised to the tips of her fingers what would be felt, thought, uttered; and with that vision sick terror seized her. She leant against the table, on the verge of fainting.

"I could not bear it! I would rather die. The very idea is maddening. 'Right.' But right or wrong I could not! There are things too impossible. And after all—that 'one' false step should bring me to this! One step, which seemed at the time nothing! To have one's life ruined! It would be cruel."

She put up both hands to her throat, where a lump seemed to rise. If she sometimes pretended to be ill, she also suffered much from overwrought nerves. Crimson flushed her face, fading into pallor, and noises sang in her ears.

"Am I going off again?" she muttered. She had presence of mind to take the letter, which had fallen from her shaking hand, and to thrust it into her pocket. The second letter she put mechanically into its envelope, then it dropped from her grasp, and she staggered to the armchair, lying back with shut eyes.

A slight tap made her reply, "Come in."

And Phyllys appeared in a new frock of pale blue, a present from Mrs. Keith. There was a touch of constraint in her manner, though she tried to be as usual. She would not accept, but could not forget, that strange midnight suggestion.

"I want you to see how nice my dress looks," she said. "But you are ill."

"A touch of faintness. Not much. Some eau-de-cologne, please."

Phyllys went to the dressing-table, beside which lay on the floor an envelope. She picked it up and laid it on the table, with the addressed side uppermost: "Colin Keith, Esquire." Evidently meant to go by the evening post. Then she poured the liquid on Mrs. Keith's palm, and dabbed it behind her ears.

"You must keep quiet," she said. "It is early still. Nobody will come for twenty minutes." But contradicting herself—"Why, there is a carriage already."

She went to the window.

"Not a carriage, but a railway fly."

Mrs. Keith sat upright, and faintness vanished. If this were the worst, she would brace herself to meet it.

"Colin has come!" exclaimed Phyllys.

"Nonsense! He is in Scotland."

"I saw him plainly, in the light from the door."

Mrs. Keith leant back, shaking like a leaf. The momentary terror, courageously met, had been awful; and reaction was severe. She had felt certain that the deferred possibility of years, nay, of decades of years, was a present reality.

Another tap at the door was accompanied by a slow—"Mother here?"

Phyllys' "Yes" was prompt, and he entered before Mrs. Keith could speak.

"You did not expect me," he said. "Just in time for dinner." He kissed Mrs. Keith on a cheek coldly presented, and Phyllys wondered if he felt the lack of welcome. He said a kind word about her apparent exhaustion, though, as Phyllys could not help noting, it aroused no anxiety. Then, when she would have moved, he murmured, "Pray don't go. I'm off."

As he passed the dressing-table, he saw the envelope addressed to himself, and took it. "Save the postman that trouble! From Giles," he remarked, and drew the sheet out, as it happened with the fourth page towards himself. "No!" in surprise. "I could have declared it to be his writing. Oddly like!" He turned to the first page, and a singular expression came.

"What are you doing there?" Mrs. Keith asked irritably.

"This is yours; not mine," and he came nearer. "You must have put it by mistake into the wrong envelope."

"What?" The word cracked out like a pistol-shot. She jumped up. "What are you talking about?"

He placed the letter in her hands. "I saw the address, and took it—but it is for yourself. I suppose you have another for me."

She snatched and thrust it into her pocket; then turned upon Colin a look not to be forgotten. It seemed to be the concentration of hate.

"How dare you meddle with letters of mine?" she demanded furiously.

"I beg your pardon. I thought it was mine."

"And of course you have read it."

She could not face those quiet eyes.

"You do not really think so. I saw the signature, and that it was to you."

"Nothing more?"

"Is not that a needless question?"

She turned away, and said passionately, "I might be left in peace this one half-hour!"

Without another word he went, followed by Phyllys, who, in the passage, could not resist a glance of sympathy.

He said in an undertone, "Please forget. She means nothing."

"I suppose she can't help it."

"There's a good deal of nervous excitement," he said evasively.

"Do you think it is—perhaps—her head?"

"Giles and I have long thought so. People are apt in such cases, as you know, to turn against those who are nearest. This is between ourselves."

Phyllys, as she moved away, wished that she could have believed the same.