“Can I do anything?” Boris began, and pausedas Sir Robert lifted his hand warningly. He appeared to be listening intently.
In about a couple of minutes Thomson entered the room.
“Oh, it’s you, Thomson,” said Sir Robert quietly. “I thought you were out?”
“I returned some time ago, sir.”
“Where is Perkins?”
“Downstairs at supper, Sir Robert.”
“Oh! Will you put on the lights in Lady Rawson’s boudoir? Go through this way, please,” Sir Robert added as Thomson moved towards the door by which he had entered.
“Very good, sir,” he answered, and imperturbably drew back the dragon curtains, pushed back the partly opened doors, switched on the lights in the inner room, and returned for further orders.
“I should like you to see that room, Mr. Melikoff,” said Sir Robert. “It is my dear wife’s boudoir. Will you come with me? Wheel me in, Thomson.”
As Thomson obeyed, his master’s keen glance swept over the beautiful room.
“The outer door is open. Close and lock it and give me the key,” he commanded, and, when Thomson had complied, added, “thank you. That will do for the present. I will ring when I need you again.”
Thomson retreated through the Chinese Room, went to the bedroom and mechanically tended the fire, then to his own room, where he sat down and waited.
It was half an hour or more before he was again summoned, and then he found Sir Robert alone.The dragon curtains were still pulled apart, but the folding doors of the boudoir were closed and locked.
Master and man looked steadily at each other for a good half-minute, then Sir Robert said:
“For how long have you been in the habit of spying on me, Thomson?”
“I have never done such a thing before, sir.”
“Humph! I wonder if that is true? It is something at least that you do not attempt to deny that you were spying on me to-night. Why did you do it?”
“Need you ask that, Sir Robert? It was by chance that I discovered that Russian gentleman was coming to see you. I thought it a very dangerous thing for you to see him alone.”
“When I pay you to ‘think’ I’ll tell you so,” Sir Robert replied icily. “I am still able to think for myself, Thomson.”
A quiver of emotion passed over Thomson’s usually passive face.
“I’m sorry, Sir Robert; it was an error of judgment on my part. It shall not occur again. I—I have served you faithfully these many years.”
“I never said you hadn’t. But remember in future, please, that excess of zeal is sometimes more dangerous than a deficiency of that otherwise excellent commodity. And now you had better call Perkins to help you put me to bed.”
“Very good, sir,” said Thomson.
On Christmas morning Grace Carling knelt before the altar in Westminster Abbey, where, as usual at this early service, there were but a few worshippers.
Through the vast, dim spaces above, beyond the radiance of the lighted chancel, the soft coo of the pigeons outside was distinctly audible above the low tones of the ministrant priest. Of other sounds there were none; the very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the glorious old place, the spiritual heart of England to-day as through so many long, long centuries.
There was peace in Grace Carling’s heart for the moment, renewed strength and courage for the long ordeal through which she and her beloved were painfully passing. She knew that at this hour, yonder in the prison chapel, such a little distance away in reality, Roger himself would likewise be kneeling; and, as always at these times, they were very near to each other, in that spiritual communion which, to those who have experienced it, is a sublime and eternal fact, albeit a fact that even they can neither explain nor understand.
When she went out presently with the words of the benediction still lingering in her ears, her pale face was serene and beautiful as that of an angel.
There were very few people about at this early hour—a mild, grey morning, with the great towers of Westminster looming through the haze like those of some dim, rich city of dreams. She walked swiftly, absorbed in thought, and as she reached Buckingham Gate came face to face with Austin Starr.
“Why, what an early bird!” she said, smiling up at him.
“I’ve been around to your place with some flowers—spring flowers, that mean hope! I guessed you would be at church, and wanted you to find them to greet you,” he explained.
“That was dear of you, Austin; just like you. Have you breakfasted? No? Then come back to breakfast with me, do. You haven’t met my dear little Miss Culpepper yet.”
“Thanks, I’d like to. Is that the old lady I saw right now? She looks a real peach.”
“She’s priceless, and such a comfort to me. What a long time since I’ve seen you, Austin. I began to think you were forgetting me.”
“I couldn’t do that,” he assured her earnestly. “But I’ve been very busy and very worried. I’ll tell you all about it directly, if I may.”
He did look worried—she had noticed it at once—but there was no opportunity to say more at the moment, as they had reached the lift.
Miss Culpepper came running out at the sound of Grace’s key in the lock.
“Oh, my dear, a gentleman has been with a mass of such beautiful flowers and a great basket of fruit!”
“I know. Here he is, come back to breakfast. Miss Culpepper—Mr. Austin Starr. Now go in to the fire, Austin, and make yourself at home—you’ll find Dear Brutus on the hearthrug, I expect—while I take my hat off.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Culpepper,” said Austin. “Mrs. Carling has just been telling me what a great comfort you are to her, and I can well believe it. We all hated her to be living here all alone. Why, did you expect me or is someone else coming?”
His quick eyes had noted that the table was laid for three persons, and already adorned with his own gifts.
Miss Culpepper paused in the act of laying another place, and put her finger to her lip mysteriously, with a significant glance towards the door.
“That’s Mr. Carling’s place,” she whispered. “It’s always laid ready for him at every meal. It pleases her, and I think it’s a beautiful idea really.”
Austin nodded sympathetically, but felt troubled nevertheless. The thought occurred to him that “if things went wrong with Roger”—the only way in which at present, even to himself, he would acknowledge the probability of Carling being convicted of the crime with which he was charged—Grace would surely die, or lose her reason.
He felt somewhat reassured, as to her mental state anyhow, when she re-entered, looking so cheerful, so self-possessed, yet, alas! physically so fragile.
She seemed perfectly normal, and yet he noticed how often she glanced at that vacant place with thechair drawn up before it, with such a curious expression in her eyes, as if she indeed saw Roger sitting there in the flesh. It was absolutely uncanny.
“Now what’s the trouble, Austin?” she asked, when the simple meal was at an end, and Miss Culpepper retreated with the breakfast things, leaving them together. She had drawn up a chair for him in front of the fire, and he knew that the vacant easy one was reserved for Roger, that “shadowy third.”
“First it’s about Roger. I’ve been following up every trail I could think of, Grace, and every one of them has led just nowhere. I seem to get up against a blank wall every time. I’ve even been to Snell again, but he can’t or won’t help; and sometimes I feel just about in despair!”
She met his troubled gaze serenely.
“I know you are leaving no stone unturned, Austin, and that the reason why you have not been to see me was because you had discovered nothing at present. But don’t let it trouble you. We must just go on keeping our hearts up, trusting and waiting. That’s sometimes the hardest thing in life, but it’s got to be done. And Roger will be cleared, how or when I do not know—yet: only that he will be saved, freed, his innocence established before the whole world!”
“You’re wonderful, Grace! I wish to heaven I had such faith.”
“I couldn’t live without it,” she said simply. “We all seem to be moving in a terrible fog, or, rather, to be so enveloped in it that we can’t move,we don’t know which way to turn! But the fog’s going to lift, the sun’s going to shine—in time! Have you seen much of the Cacciolas lately?”
“Not for the last few days. I’ve been in and out a good deal, have got to know them pretty well, and the more I know them the better I like them—even young Melikoff—and the more I’m convinced that none of them had any more to do with that unhappy woman’s death than you or I had, and know no more about it. They seldom speak of it now—never when Boris is there. Lady Rawson seems to have had a sort of malign influence over him, which Maddelena resented bitterly; so did themaestro, for all he’s so gentle and tolerant, dear old man!”
“Was that Miss Maddelena I saw you with last week?” asked Grace quietly.
“Saw me with her—where?”
“In St. James’s Park. I was sitting down. You passed quite close to me.”
“Oh, yes! I did meet her one day, by pure chance. I never saw you. Curious too, she was very upset because Boris had had a letter from Sir Robert Rawson asking him to go and see him, and she didn’t want him to do so.”
“Did he go?” asked Grace quickly.
“I don’t know—I haven’t seen or heard from any of them since. But if he did, and anything transpired that would give us any light, Maddelena would have got it out of him and sent word to me—sure.”
“I wonder why Sir Robert wanted to see him,” mused Grace, “and why Miss Maddelena didn’t want him to go?”
He smiled.
“She was afraid it would upset him. She’s very fond of Boris, and that’s why she was so jealous of Lady Rawson’s influence over him. As a matter of fact, she’s made up her mind to marry him, and I guess she’ll have her way! She’ll be a charming and a jolly good wife too, though it will be a case of ‘one who loves and one who graciously permits himself to be loved.’ They’re going to the States in the spring; Cacciola’s just fixed up a season in New York, where Boris will make his début, and then they’ll go on tour. I bet Maddelena comes back as Mrs. Melikoff. She’s just about the most masterful young woman I’ve ever met, though a real good sort too.”
He smiled again, indulgently and reminiscently, then sighed.
“Cacciola wanted Winnie to go with them,” he continued slowly, staring fixedly at the fire; “but I gather she’s refused. It would have been a big chance for her; and besides, I’ll have to go over myself in the early spring. We could all have gone together, and she’d have met my mother and sisters, and—— But now of course——”
He turned to Grace with startling suddenness. “Grace, do you know that Winnie’s giving me the frozen mitten?”
“Giving you the—what?” she echoed in sheer surprise.
“That she’s turned me down. I haven’t even seen her since the day after she came back from Bristol.”
“Nor have I, or only for a few minutes between whiles. She’s been away most of the time, with allthese provincial engagements—only got back late last night; she rang me up.”
“Did she say anything about me?”
“No, only that she hadn’t seen you. I’m going to help down at Bermondsey. Aren’t you coming too?”
“No—I don’t know. She hasn’t asked me. Fact is, she hasn’t answered my letters—she’s simply ignored me. I went around yesterday, and her maid said she wasn’t at home, though I’m plumb certain she was all the time. Then I rang up, and again the maid answered and said Winnie had gone to bed, and again I didn’t believe her. Why is she treating me like this? I can’t understand it. It’s worrying me no end. I’d have tried to find out from George, but he’s in Paris, as you know.”
Grace nodded.
“When did you see her last?”
“I told you—the day after she returned from Bristol. It was at Cacciola’s, as it happened, and she came on here to you afterwards. I came with her as far as the lift, but she’d scarcely speak to me, thoughwhyI don’t know to this moment.”
He looked so utterly forlorn and lugubrious that Grace had to smile, while she rapidly reviewed the situation and recalled her own vague suspicions.
“You say you last saw her at Cacciola’s,” she mused. “What happened there?”
“Nothing that I know of,” he asserted earnestly. “They were singing—or Boris was—when I got there, and I didn’t see Winnie at first; she was sitting in a dark corner.”
“H’m! And Miss Maddelena was there?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Does Winnie know what you’ve just told me—about Mr. Melikoff and Maddelena?”
“I don’t know—how should I? I’ve told you I haven’t seen her since. What’s that got to do with it, anyhow?”
“Quite a lot, perhaps. Look here, Austin, I’ll be quite frank with you. When I saw you and Miss Maddelena—if it was she—last week, until I recognized you I really thought you were—well, just a pair of sweethearts. You really appeared to be on such very confidential terms!”
“Great Scott! Why I—she—it’s only her way! She’s impulsive, affectionate with people she likes, even when they’re only casual acquaintances like myself. The old man’s the same. See here, Grace, you don’t mean that you think Winnie’s jealous—jealous of Maddelena?”
She laughed outright. She couldn’t help it. His consternation and his air of injured innocence were so comical.
“I think it highly probable, my dear Austin.”
“But it’s absurd!” he protested. “And it’s not a bit like Winnie.”
“Isn’t it? I’m afraid you don’t know much about women, Austin, even though youarea novelist, and psychologist, and all the rest of it.”
He laughed too, then, somewhat ruefully:
“I guess you’re about right. You generally are. Question is—what’s to be done?”
“What did you send her for Christmas?”
“Only some flowers and candies. I took them around myself last night and left them. But I’vegot this.” From his waistcoat pocket he extracted a dainty little morocco case, opened it and passed it to Grace, adding sheepishly, “You see, I wanted to give her this myself, if she’ll only see me.”
“Oh, how beautiful!” Grace cried, as she examined the ring—a superb sapphire surrounded by small diamonds.
“Sapphire’s her favourite stone, and just the colour of her eyes, that wonderful deep blue,” he said. “I bought it weeks back, and have been carrying it around ever since, waiting the opportunity to give it her.”
“You are a dear, Austin, and you won’t have to wait much longer. Take my advice and go straight along to Chelsea now; you’ll catch her before she starts out for church, and you can go with her. I’m coming along later. She’ll see you right enough this time.”
He obeyed with alacrity, and when she had started him off she rang up Winnie. Martha answered, and asked her to “hold the line” while she fetched her mistress. A minute later came Winnie’s fresh young voice.
“That you, Grace, darling? How are you? You’re coming along directly?”
“Yes, in an hour or so, I’ve just had an early visitor—Austin. The poor boy’s awfully upset.”
“Really? Why?” Winnie’s tone had become frigid.
“I think you know well enough, old thing. He’s confided to me that you seem to have given him the frozen mitten!”
A pause. Then, icily:
“I don’t understand the expression; it sounds exceedingly vulgar!”
“Win, darling, don’t fence, or pretend not to understand. It’s serious. I saw something was wrong; I’ve suspected it for some time, and had no end of trouble to get it out of him. But he says you’ve cut him systematically ever since you got back from Bristol, that you won’t see him or answer his letters, and he’s frightfully unhappy about it.”
“Is he?” Another pause, and what sounded like an angry sob. “It’s all very well for him to talk, but if you’d seen him as I did, with that Maddelena Cacciola, when he didn’t know I was there—why I thought he was going to kiss her in front of everybody! And—and—oh, I can’t explain, but I—I saw and heard quite enough that day to—to realize that—I’d made a mistake—or he had.”
“Winnie, you’re quite wrong! I know all about that, and there’s nothing in it. Surely you know the Cacciolas well enough by this time to know how unconventional and—well—effusive they are. Austin admires the girl in a way, but he says she’s ‘the most masterful young woman he’s ever met,’ and—he loves you, Win; you know that in your heart. It—it’s not worthy of you, dear, to mistrust him so—not to give him a chance to explain. Darling, are you going to let the rift widen—perhaps to spoil both your lives for nothing—when there’s so much real sorrow in the world?”
“I know. I’ve been pretty miserable too, and—Idon’t know when I shall see him again,” said Winnie tremulously, and Grace smiled.
“You’ll see him in about ten minutes, if he’s been able to find a taxi. He’s on his way to you now. Bye-bye till lunch time.”
She put up the receiver.
Mr. Iverson’s Christmas party for his poorest, and some of his “blackest,” sheep was in full swing when Grace arrived there that evening.
Outside the Parish Hall a taxicab was standing, unattended, and she wondered for whom it might be waiting. She entered and stood for a time, unobserved, among the throng inside the door, for the place was crowded.
On the tiny stage was Maddelena Cacciola, a bewitching figure in a gaycontadinacostume, singing a merry, rollicking song to her own guitar accompaniment.
A roar of applause followed, the rough audience stamping, shrilling, whistling their delight, till the girl reappeared, beaming at them, and waved her hands to enjoin silence.
“Just a little dance now, my friends, and that must be the very last, please,” she announced; and forthwith Cacciola’s master touch brought forth real music, even from the old tinpotty piano. And Maddelena danced.
Grace watched her, fascinated. How charming, how versatile, how utterly unaffected she was; and what a consummateartiste! No wonder Austin hadbeen attracted by her. Who could resist her? She was glad she had persuaded Winnie and him not to come on here with her to-night, but to get into “glad rags” and go to dine and dance at the Savoy. Her peacemaking effort had been entirely successful, and all was well with those two whom she loved. Winnie, the sapphire and diamond ring gleaming on her hand, had been radiant all through that tiring afternoon, had sung delightfully, had been her most lovable self; but it was just as well that she should not enter into rivalry with this irresistible Italian girl!
The end of the dance evoked another tumult of appreciation, but Maddelena had vanished, not to return, and the vicar’s jolly voice boomed out.
“We’d like to listen all night to the signorina, but we mustn’t be greedy and work her too hard. Now I vote we have some more tea and cakes—they’re all ready in the next room—and then we’ll clear for a dance.”
In the movement that followed he caught sight of Grace, and made his way towards her.
“My dear child, how long have you been here?”
“Only a few minutes, just in time to help,padre.”
“Nothing of the sort; you look tired out. Come along; we’ll find a chair in a comparatively quiet corner.”
“I’m not tired, really; I’m happier at work.”
“I know that,” he said in his fatherly way. “But you mustn’t overdo it, you know. Where’s Miss Winston?”
“I persuaded her not to come. She’s beensinging all the afternoon at one place and another; we’ve had quite a big day of it,padre.”
“Just so. And it’s all right here, as it happens. We’ve got the Cacciolas, as you see, and they’re a host in themselves—dear folk! Isn’t Miss Maddelena wonderful? Why didn’t you bring your little Miss Culpepper along?”
“She’s keeping house with Dear Brutus, and expected an old sweetheart to tea.”
“You don’t say so! Well, well. Now sit you down, child, and I’ll bring you some coffee.”
“I’ve got some here; and please, Mr. Iverson, do introduce me to Mrs. Carling.”
It was Maddelena herself who joined them, a dark wrap thrown over her picturesque dress, a big steaming cup of coffee in her hand.
He complied, and Maddelena smiled down at her, and tendered the coffee.
“It is for you; I saw how tired you were looking, and brought it on purpose. Now you must drink it,” she said in her charming, authoritative way. “And, oh, I am so glad to meet you at last, Mrs. Carling! I think of you so often.” She drew up another chair for herself, and the vicar slipped away to resume his duties as host. “You are so brave, so good—you set aside your so great sorrow and anxiety and think always of others; andpadrehas told me. It is wonderful,” Maddelena continued. “And, oh, I do so wish I could help you! I have so wanted to come and see you, but I did not like to, as we had never met.”
“Well, now we have met I hope you will come and see me some day soon, Miss Cacciola,” saidGrace. “I have heard of you too, from my old friend Austin Starr.”
“Ah, yes—that nice Mr. Starr! He is seeking still for fresh evidence that might help your husband. Has he any success yet?” Grace shook her head sadly. “Alas! it is a terrible mystery. We sought to help him, my uncle and I, yes, and even Boris, as perhaps he told you, but we could discover nothing—nothing at all!”
“Yes, he did tell me, and indeed I am very grateful, Miss Cacciola. Itisstrange—terrible—that we can get no fresh light at all. But I am quite sure that the truth will be revealed. But for that faith I—I don’t think I could bear the suspense.”
“Do you know, at the first, Mrs. Carling, I thought—as Boris also and doubtless very many others did—that your husband must have been guilty, until I saw him in the police court that day, and then I knew—though how I knew I cannot tell you—that he was innocent; and I would do anything in the world that I could to help to prove it. But what can we do?”
Grace pressed her hand, keenly touched by the girl’s earnest, impulsive sympathy, but could find no words to reply. What, indeed could be said?
“I have wondered often of late,” Maddelena resumed, her dark brows contracted in thought, “whether our old Giulia would be able to tell you anything.”
“Your Giulia? Why, who is she?” asked Grace.
“My uncle’s housekeeper—in fact our only servant. She has been with him for many years and is devoted to us all. She is Italian, of course, apeasant, and quite uneducated, but she has—what do you call it?—clairvoyance, the ‘second sight,’ sometimes, and can see, oh, the most extraordinary things—for some people!”
“Really!” Grace exclaimed, almost in a whisper, her heart beginning to flutter, her eyes searching the girl’s vivid, thoughtful face.
“Yes. She can see nothing for herself—it is often so—only for others, and she tells me things that do come true. Many times of late, as I begged her to, she has tried to see what happened that day, but she has failed so far. She says she knew, when Paula Rawson left, that there was tragedy round her; she saw her depart as in a red cloud, and was half minded to follow her at the time. If only she had done so! But she disliked and feared her always. And she has never been able to see anything clearly about it—for me. She says it is because Paula really does not come into my life at all, except indirectly. It might be different with Boris, though she has never tried to ‘see’ for him. He does not know of her powers, and I do not want him to let her try with him—it might upset, unbalance him again, restore the terrible influence Paula had over him. You understand that, don’t you? Or you would if you knew him, and how terribly he has suffered! But I do believe she might be able to see something for you.”
“I wonder,” Grace murmured perplexedly. “I don’t know anything about such things, Miss Cacciola; of course I have heard of clairvoyants.”
“Yes, fortune tellers and charlatans most of them; but our Giulia is not like that. It is a realgift with her. Oh, if you would come to see her! Why not come now? She is all alone, and it will be quite quiet. Or are you too tired?”
“Tired? Oh, no, indeed,” Grace declared eagerly. “But I should be taking you away from here.”
“I’m quite ready to go. They’ll have to do without me for the rest of the evening,” said Maddelena rising. “We’ve a cab waiting outside, Mrs. Carling, so I will just find the chauffeur and tell my uncle we are going. Will you stay here till I return?”
She flitted away and disappeared among the noisy, merry crowd that was beginning to drift back from the refreshment-room, to return in a minute or two accompanied by the taxi-driver.
“Here we are. I have told thepadrethat I am going to start you off home, as I will after you have seen Giulia. Come along.”
They drove along the Mall, almost deserted on this Christmas night, a peaceful and beautiful scene with the river at full tide under the moonlight. The last time Grace had driven along here was on her way from church on that wedding day that seemed a lifetime ago. Now she felt as if she were bound on some strange, vague adventure in the world of dreams!
The cab turned up a narrow street on the left, and paused at the high road, held up by a couple of passing trams—paused just outside that fatal post office. The house was dark, the shop windows plastered with big posters announcing that the premises had been sold by private treaty.
“The horrible place is to be pulled down,” saidMaddelena. “That is well. Mrs. Cave has got another shop about a quarter of a mile away, nearer the station. She moved there, post office and all, a few days ago. She is very glad. No wonder.”
As they crossed the road and drove down the quiet square, Grace, staring out of the window, could almost imagine that she saw the ghost-like figure of Paula Rawson gliding along in the shadow—gliding to her doom—and shivered involuntarily.
“You are cold!” exclaimed Maddelena solicitously.
“No. I was only—remembering,” she answered, and Maddelena pressed her arm with an impulsive gesture of sympathy.
“You can wait,” she told the chauffeur. “Go down and tell Mr. Withers you are to sit by his fire till I call you. Take my arm, Mrs. Carling. We will go slowly up these many stairs. They are trying to a stranger.”
Grace, indeed, was breathless when they reached the top, and Maddelena led her straight into the big drawing-room, where the cosy gas fire was aglow as usual—the Cacciolas loved warmth—switched on the lights, and pushed her guest into the easiest chair.
“Now you must have a glass of my uncle’s famous wine and a biscuit. Yes, yes, I insist, it is here—everybody has to do as I say; Mr. Starr calls me ‘she who must be obeyed.’ Has he told you that? He is very funny sometimes, that Mr. Starr, but he is right there. So, drink it up while I go and prepare Giulia.”
She found the old woman sitting in her oldarmchair in the spotless kitchen—placidly enjoying her Christmas evening playing “patience,” in company with a flask of Chianti and a dish of salted almonds—bestowed a hearty kiss upon her, and explained why she had returned so early.
“But who is it?” protested Giulia. “I do not know that I shall be able to see for her.”
“Thou wilt try, dear good Giulia,” coaxed Maddelena. “It will be kind indeed, for she is in deep distress over the fate of one whom she loves most dearly. Yes, she is a stranger. I will not even tell thee her name; it is not necessary: at least thou hast often said so. Let the light come if it will.”
“Well, well, thou wilt have thy way as usual,carissima,” said Giulia resignedly, pushing aside her cards. “But she must come to me here.”
“I will bring her on the instant,” said Maddelena, and returned to Grace.
“She is ready. Do you mind coming into the kitchen? She is always at her best in her own domain. Do you understand Italian? No? Then I must be with you to translate, for when she ‘sees’ she always speaks in her own tongue. I will write it down—that will be best. Ah, you have drunk the wine—that is good. You look just a little bit less like a ghost now, dear lady. This way.”
Giulia rose as they entered the kitchen, dropped a quaint little curtsey, and fixed her dark eyes earnestly on the visitor.
“Yes, I zink it vill be that I vill see. Zere is light all around you—ze great protecting light! Vill you sit here at my feet; take off your gloves and hold my hands—so! Vait now; do not speak!”
She pulled out a hassock, on which Grace obediently seated herself. Giulia took her hands, holding them lightly and moving her own wrinkled brown ones over them with a curious massage-like movement for a minute or more, while she continued to gaze searchingly at her. Maddelena, pencil and notebook in hand, leaned on the back of Giulia’s chair.
In the silence the slow tick of the clock sounded unnaturally loud; in Grace’s ears her own heartbeats sounded even louder.
Then Giulia ceased moving her hands and grasped those of her visitor closely and firmly, in a grip that occasionally, during the minutes that followed, became almost painful. Grace saw the light fade from the old woman’s eyes, leaving them fixed and glassy, like those of a corpse, till the lids drooped over them and she seemed to sleep, breathing deeply and heavily. Soon she began to speak, in Italian, slowly and with difficulty at first, then more fluently.
Grace, watching and listening with strained attention, could only understand a word here and there, but Maddelena later gave her the written translation.
“There is light all around you—a beautiful light; it is the great protection; but beyond there is gloom and within it I see a man; he is your beloved. I think he is young and handsome, but I cannot see him clearly. I could not see him at all but for the light around you that penetrates even to him. You stretch hands to each other, striving to meet—you in the light, he in the darkness—and sometimes the hands touch, just for a moment.
“Ah, the darkness passes a little. I see a large building; many people are there: it is a Court of Justice. The beloved is apart from you, from all, in a place by himself; there is but one beside him—I think he is an officer of police. The light streams from you to him, it gives him strength and courage.
“Alas! the darkness gathers; it shrouds you both now—black, black! The very Shadow of Doom—the Shadow of Death!”
Maddelena, still writing rapidly, almost mechanically, drew her breath with a little gasp of dismay, and Grace glanced at her with agonized eyes.
“What is she saying?” she whispered.
“S-sh—wait, it is not the end,” Maddelena whispered back hurriedly. It seemed a long time, though probably it was not more than a minute, before Giulia spoke again.
“The light comes once more, but it is a different light, and the air is full of the odour of flowers. Now I can see. It is a large, a beautiful room—larger than themaestro’smusic-room. The hangings are green and the chairs of gold. There are many flowers. A clock strikes—it is the ninth hour. Hush, there are footsteps and voices, low voices; men come in softly; I do not know them; they look like great lords. Now two more enter—one is young and one older; I have seen them before, but I know not where. You are not there, nor your beloved. Someone is speaking; I cannot see him, there is a mist rising—a red mist; it hides all....
“But the end is not yet. Once more the light comes. It is another room now—a smaller one. A woman kneels beside a bed. She is very still, andI cannot see her face, but I think—nay, I am sure—it is thou thyself, signora; and the light is all radiant above thee—the light of the ‘great protection.’ There is a little table close by with a telephone. Listen, it is the bell ringing. The woman rises—yes, she is thou. It is news, good news. The tears come, but, ah, they are tears of joy.
“Here is thy beloved—at last I see him clearly. He is at thy side, he is free. The shadow has passed away. See, thou art in his arms, and the light—the glorious light is upon both!”
Silence once more. Slowly her grasp relaxed—for days afterwards Grace’s hands showed blue marks from the grip of those strong brown fingers—she drew a long sigh, shivered, and then slowly opened her eyes and gazed dreamily at the girl.
“Vat is it? Vat have I see?” she muttered in her broken English.
“Thou hast seen much that was very strange and very comforting; thou hast done well, dear Giulia,” said Maddelena, leaning forward and bestowing a hug and kiss on her from behind. “Rest now, thou art exhausted. So, thou shalt sleep for a while.”
Giulia leant back and closed her eyes again, and Maddelena turned to Grace, who had risen with difficulty.
“Come, Mrs. Carling, she will be all right in a few minutes. You are faint and trembling. No wonder! It was a marvellous séance.”
“What did she see? What did she say?” faltered Grace, glad of the support of Maddelena’s strong young arm as the girl led her along the passage.
“I will tell you directly. I have it all down, or nearly all, I think, but in Italian—there was no time to translate. I will do that and send it to you to-morrow.”
“It sounded so tragic, so terrible,” said Grace piteously. “I couldn’t understand, of course; but surely she said something about death—the shadow of death—when you seemed so upset!”
“Yes. I was afraid for a moment, but the shadow passed in the end. I am sure, quite sure, she has seen rightly, and that Mr. Carling will be saved, though how I don’t know and she doesn’t, but listen.”
Rapidly she turned over her scrawled notes, and read the last part only, from the description of the room with the flowers and the green hangings. She thought it kindest to suppress the earlier episodes, and as a matter of fact did not divulge them fully to Grace until weeks later.
“Do you recognize the rooms?”
“Not the large one,” said Grace perplexedly. “I cannot place it at all. But the other must be our—my—bedroom: the telephone is there, as she says. And you say she saw Roger there!”
“Yes, that’s the very last thing; you are to think of that, dear Mrs. Carling, whatever may happen. No matter how dark things may be, the lightwillcome—the ‘great protection’ will be over you both all the time. So you will never lose courage, even for a moment, will you? Oh, Iamso glad you came!”
“You dear child!” cried Grace, and kissed her.
“And now I am going to see you home—you are tired to death. Well, only to the station then, if you will have it so. And I may come and see you soon? We will be friends, real friends, won’t we?”
When she arrived home, still musing over this strange, almost incredible, episode, Grace found Miss Culpepper—also playing “patience”—with a cheerful fire, a dainty little supper, and a loving welcome.
“What a long day you’ve had, my dear. You must be worn out,” she said, fluttering round and helping her remove her wrap.
“Yes, it has been long, but very interesting. And how have you got on? Did Mr. Thomson come to tea?”
“Y-e-s—oh, yes, though he didn’t stay very long. Sir Robert is not so well, and he was anxious to return. He brought me this—a beautiful little bit of bigotry, isn’t it?”
“This” was an antique brooch, set with pearls, a really exquisite piece of workmanship.
“It’s lovely, and suits you perfectly in that lace fichu.”
“Yes. James always had excellent taste, and I really was very pleased, and very surprised. But do you know, dear Mrs. Carling, I see a great difference in him—naturally perhaps after all these years; but—oh, I don’t know what it is, something I cannot fathom! And Dear Brutus did behave so badly, spat and swore—sworeat Mr. Thomson, till I actually had to take him out to the kitchen and shut him up there. It was quite upsetting!”
The trial of Roger Carling for the murder of Lady Rawson was drawing to an end. No case heard in the Central Criminal Court had ever created greater public interest, by reason of the sensational and unique circumstances of the crime, and the social status of the victim and of several of the persons involved.
Also, many of the callous and curious spectators, most of them fashionably dressed women, who waited for hours in the bitter cold of those grey winter mornings to gain admission to the court, fully expected a series of scandalous revelations; for rumours had been rife of some passionate intrigue between the murdered woman and Roger Carling, or Boris Melikoff, or both men; and circumstantial lies, invented by salacious minds, were broadcasted by malicious tongues from Mayfair and Belgravia to the far suburbs.
Those prurient anticipations were never satisfied. No fresh evidence was forthcoming; but as the case developed so the tension increased, the interest became cumulatively more poignant, more painful, concentrated on the prisoner, pale and worn but perfectly self-possessed, and his girl-wife, whose eyes never left his face, and who seemed utterlyoblivious of every one and everything else in the world except during the brief interval when, in the witness-box, she gave evidence on the important episode of the sudden change of their honeymoon plans.
The opening indictment by counsel for the Crown seemed flawless. Inexorably, with consummate skill, and in absolutely passionless tones, he reconstructed and related the story of the crime, from the discovery of the theft of the secret papers to the arrest of the prisoner on the fourth day of his honeymoon. Calmly, relentlessly he wove the threads of circumstantial evidence and presented it as a complete web.
In imagination, those who listened saw Roger Carling enter on his hasty quest—“Bear in mind the importance that he attached, and rightly attached, to those missing papers—an importance so tremendous that his own wedding, the bride who was awaiting him at the very altar, became secondary considerations!”—followed him as in the increasing gloom he dogged the footsteps of his victim, watched him pass swiftly through the shop, unperceived by the other persons there, a circumstance that sounded almost incredible until its possibility was demonstrated by the model and plans of the place, which were duly passed to the jury for examination. Then the fatal stab in that obscure corner, a deed premeditated, if only for a brief minute before hand, as the weapon (counsel held up that little tortoiseshell knife) must have been ready in his hand. It was the work of a moment; it was done not in the heat of passion, but coolly,deliberately; and as coolly and deliberately, having achieved his immediate purpose and regained possession of the papers, he thereupon not only effected his own escape for the time being, but, with a resource amazing in its ingenuity, instantly got rid of his incriminating booty, the recovered papers, in the one way that might, and as a matter of fact did, effect their safe return to Sir Robert Rawson, by posting them in the letter-box close at hand!
“Is it probable—nay, is it possible or even conceivable—that any other person than the prisoner, the one man in England who at that moment knew the contents and the inestimable importance of those documents, would have acted in such a manner?
“The reaction came, naturally and inevitably. The prisoner’s demeanour, the agitation he exhibited when eventually he arrived at the church where his bride awaited him, were precisely what might be expected in a man who had come straight from the perpetration of an appalling crime, as they were far in excess of the physical and mental distress that any ordinary individual would suffer through the accidental inconvenience and delay experienced in consequence of the fog.
“Finally, there was a sudden change of plans and of destination effected after the prisoner and his bride had actually started on their honeymoon. Why did he not take his bride to the hotel where rooms had already been booked for them? Because he had begun to realize what the consequence of his crime would be—feared that he would be arrested that very night, sought to gain time, a few hours, a few days.”
Cummings-Browne sprang up.
“I protest! There is a complete explanation of the change of plans which will be given in evidence.”
“My learned friend says the change of plans will be completely explained in the course of evidence. It will be for you, gentlemen of the jury, to decide on its significance when you have heard the explanation, as it will be your duty to weigh the whole of the evidence.”
Hour after hour through that day and the next the succession of witnesses gave their evidence, and were subjected to searching cross-examination and re-examination by the respective counsel. Those in court, and they were many, who were familiar with the methods of the famous counsel for the defence discerned from the first that Cummings-Browne was on his mettle, fighting for his client’s life against most desperate odds; for the great mass of evidence provided corroboration on nearly every point of the theory formulated by the prosecution; and in refutation of that theory there was practically nothing except Roger’s own simple, straightforward statement of his movements, and Grace’s pathetic testimony regarding their change of plan, for which she insisted that she alone was responsible.
One point which Cummings-Browne elicited was, that while it was practically certain that the murderer wore gloves—a fact indicated by the smears on the bag—Sadler, the taxi-driver, swore positively that Roger Carling was not wearing gloves when he left the taxi.
“I noticed how cold his hands looked when he paid me, and wondered that a well-dressed younggentleman didn’t have his gloves on on such a raw day.”
Neither old Giulia nor any of the witnesses who were questioned concerning the time he arrived at the church, and his appearance when he did arrive, could give any definite information on this matter, while he himself admitted that he had gloves in his pocket, and very probably put them on while he was on his way to the church, though he had no recollection of doing so; but asserted that they were the same gloves—a pair of grey antelope—that he had worn on his journey back to Town when he was under arrest, and that were now among the “exhibits” in court. Those gloves were soiled, but with ordinary wear, and a microscopic examination proved that there were no incriminating stains on them, and that they had never undergone any process of cleaning.
That circumstance—so small in itself, but of such tremendous importance when a man’s life depended on it—was duly emphasized by Cummings-Browne in the course of his three hours’ speech for the defence—a speech afterwards acknowledged to be the most brilliant, the most impassioned, the most moving that even he had ever delivered; one that held his auditors enthralled.
There was dead silence for a few seconds after he sat down, then a wave of emotion swept over the crowded court, and a spontaneous murmur of applause, instantly and sternly suppressed by the ushers.
Austin Starr, sitting close to Grace, drew a deep breath of relief and flashed a smile at Roger. Hebelieved, as many others did at that moment, that Cummings-Browne had triumphed once more—that Roger was saved.
Then, grim and relentless as Fate, counsel for the Crown rose to reply. Bit by bit, calmly, remorselessly he demolished that eloquent defence, exposed the slight foundation on which it was based compared with the mass of evidence that supported the case for the prosecution; dwelt on the atrocious nature of the crime—“a crime far worse than ordinary homicide, for which there was often the excuse that it was committed in the heat of passion; but this was assassination—the cool, deliberate assassination of a helpless, defenceless woman!”
After that cold, calm, implacable denunciation came the judge’s summing-up—grave, reasoned, meticulously impartial. Then the jury retired.
One hour, two hours dragged by, each seeming long as a lifetime. Would they never return? At last at the little movement that heralded the final scene, counsel and solicitors, Grace Carling and her friends came in and resumed their places, the judge took his seat once more, the prisoner reappeared in the dock. Roger stood with shoulders squared, head erect, lips firmly set, pale indeed, but apparently as self-possessed as was the judge himself.
The jury filed in.
“Guilty!”
With that one low-voiced word the Shadow of Doom seemed to descend; and above the subdued sound of sobbing the judge’s deep, solemn voice was heard asking the prisoner if he had anything to say before sentence was passed on him.
Roger looked at him full and fearlessly, and answered in tones that rang through the court:
“Only this, my lord, that I am absolutely innocent—innocent in thought as well as in deed—of this appalling crime!”
As he spoke Grace rose in her place, slowly, silently, till she stood at her full height, her hands clasped on her breast. There was a strange, ecstatic expression on her fair face, subtle and inscrutable as the smile of Mona Lisa, and her eyes were fixed on Roger’s, as, from the moment he ceased speaking, his were fixed on hers.
So those two lovers looked at each other while the dread sentence was pronounced that would part them for ever in this world. They did not even seem to hear the words of doom.
Many women, and some men, were sobbing hysterically, none were unmoved; but still Grace stood like a statue, scarcely seeming to breathe, gazing no longer at Roger—for he, with the two warders in attendance, had disappeared—but at the place where he had been.
Austin Starr slipped his arm round her on the one side, Winnie Winston, tearful and trembling, on the other.
“We must get her away,” sobbed Winnie. “Come, darling!”
She yielded to their touch, walking quite steadily, but as unconscious of her surroundings as a somnambulist.
Only when they reached the anteroom and a little crowd of friends and counsel clustered round her,she turned her head and looked at Austin, that faint unearthly smile still on her lips, and said, quite distinctly:
“It is not the end. There is still the light—the great protection!”
With that she swayed forward, and Austin held and lowered her gently to the floor.
“Oh, she’s dead!” cried Winnie, kneeling distractedly beside her. “Grace—Grace, darling!”
“She’s only fainted, thank God! It’s better for her,” said Austin huskily.
In the room that had once been Paula Rawson’s boudoir Sir Robert Rawson lay on his wheeled couch, drawn up near a blazing fire. Of late he had extended his daily visits to this room of poignant memories, spending many hours there, with Thomson or Perkins in attendance on him—usually Perkins, for since the evening of Boris Melikoff’s visit, when Sir Robert had detected and rebuked that “error of judgment” in his trusted old servant, he had not resumed the confidential relations that had existed between them for so many years. He never again referred, in words, to the incident, but an impalpable barrier had risen between master and man that in all probability would never be surmounted.
Over the mantelpiece hung the famous half-length portrait of Paula which, entitled “The Jade Necklace,” had beenthepicture of its year at the Academy, a masterpiece that showed her in all her imperious beauty, dressed in a robe of filmy black over which fell a superb chain of jade beads, the one startling note of vivid colour in the whole picture.
For hours Sir Robert would lie and gaze at the portrait that seemed to gaze back at him withproud, tragic, inscrutable dark eyes. He was gazing at it now, and might or might not have been listening as Perkins conscientiously read aloud column after column from “The Times.” Perkins read remarkably well—Sir Robert occasionally complimented him—but he often wondered whether his master really did listen!
He paused when the butler entered with a visiting card, on which a brief message was written in pencil below the name: “Entreating five minutes’ interview on a most urgent and private matter.”
“Mr. Austin Starr,” Sir Robert muttered, frowning meditatively over the card.
“There’s a lady too, Sir Robert,” said Jenkins. “I asked her name, but the gentleman said she would only give it to you.”
For a full minute Sir Robert pondered, holding the card in his thin fingers, before he answered slowly: “Very well. Bring them up, Jenkins.... You can wait in the next room, Perkins.”
In the interval he looked up again at the portrait, with a strange expression in his haggard eyes, as if he were mutely questioning it; but his stern old face was impassive as a mask as he turned it towards his visitors.
“I remember you, Mr. Starr; but who is this lady?”
Grace, for it was she, came forward and raised her veil.
“I am Roger Carling’s wife, Sir Robert.”
He looked at her intently. He had seen her once or twice, when she had been a guest at his wife’s receptions, and he never forgot a face he hadonce seen, but he could scarcely recognize in this pale, worn woman with appealing, pathetic, grey eyes, the radiant young girl of such a few months ago.
“I thought it might be you,” he said slowly. “I am very sorry for you, Mrs. Carling—and sorry that you have come here to-day. I fear you will only add to your own distress—and to mine. Why have you come?”
“To plead with you for my husband’s life,” she cried. “As our very last hope, Sir Robert! You know—you must know—that the appeal has failed, the petition to the Home Secretary has failed, and to-morrow—to-morrow——”
She faltered and Sir Robert said grimly:
“To-morrow Robert Carling will pay the just penalty for his crime.”
Austin clenched his hands in indignation, but dared not speak, dared do nothing to interrupt this terrible old man, who, if he could be prevailed upon to intervene, might yet save Roger Carling from the scaffold. If Grace could not move him, assuredly no one else could!
“No, no, Sir Robert—he is innocent; you, of all people, should have known that from the first.”
“I? I would give everything I possess in this world to be able to believe that, but I cannot. He has been tried and found guilty. There is no shadow of doubt that heisguilty, and that knowledge is the bitterest thing in the world to me, for I loved him, I trusted him as a son, and he murdered my dear wife!”
She fell on her knees beside his couch, stretching out piteous hands to him.
“Sir Robert, I implore you to hear me! Roger never raised his hand against Lady Rawson. God knows who did, but it was not he! The truth will be discovered some day, I don’t know how or when, but it will; and if it comes too late—and there are such a few hours, such a few short hours in which he may still be saved—his death will be at your door, on your conscience! For you can save him now if you will! Your influence is so great, if you will but say one word on his behalf the Home Secretary—the King himself—will listen to you, will respond to you as to no other man in the world. They will grant a reprieve, and then, whenever the truth does come out, his innocence will be established—he will be set free. Sir Robert, I implore you.”
Again he looked at the portrait, and her agonized eyes followed the direction of his.
For a few seconds there was a tense silence. The deathly fragrance of the masses of flowers in the room seemed to increase till it was overpowering, suffocating. Then Grace spoke softly, brokenly, not to the stern old man, but to the woman in the picture.
“Oh, if only you could speak; if you could but tell us the whole truth! Do you know—I wonder, I think you may do—how I wept and prayed for you when I learned of your terrible fate, that overshadowed those sacred hours of our happiness; how my beloved grieved for you and your strickenhusband, whom he so loved and honoured? If youdoknow, then, as a woman, you will know what we suffer, in our great love and all our sorrow, with the shadow of doom upon us—you will strive to touch your husband’s heart, to soften it towards us!”
“Enough!” Sir Robert’s voice broke in harshly. “It is useless for you to invoke the dead, useless to ask me to intercede for your husband. I have no power to save him, and if I had I would not exert it; the law must take its course!”
Austin stepped forward impetuously.
“Sir Robert,” he began indignantly, but Grace checked him with a gesture.
In some uncanny way she seemed suddenly to regain her composure, and rose to her feet, standing erect just as she had done in court when the judge pronounced Roger’s doom. Slowly her glance travelled from the portrait round the beautiful room, as if she was noting each detail, and the two men watched her in silence.
“The room with green hangings and many flowers,” she said softly; “the room where the truth will be made known—at the ninth hour.”
“Come away, Grace,” said Austin huskily, moving to her side and taking her arm. He feared her mind had given way at last under the long strain.
She looked at him with that faint, inscrutable Mona Lisa smile on her white face.
“It is all right, Austin, good friend. I am not mad. Yes, we will go—to Roger. It was good of you to see me, Sir Robert. I will forget what youhave said; you will know better soon—at the ninth hour. Good-bye. Come, Austin.”
She moved towards the door, scarcely seeming to need Austin’s support, and when it closed behind them Sir Robert covered his eyes with his hand and sank back on his pillows.
As they went down the wide staircase Thomson silently appeared on the landing, and, after a moment’s hesitation, followed them. Jenkins met them in the hall, ceremoniously ushered them out, and opened the door of the waiting taxi. Austin helped Grace into the cab and was about to follow her when Thomson crossed the pavement.
“Half a minute, Mr. Jenkins. Can I have a word with you, Mr. Starr?”
Jenkins retreated, imagining that Thomson had come with a message from his master, and Austin turned.
“Well, what is it?”
“This way, if you don’t mind, sir,” said Thomson, drawing him a little aside. “Am I right in thinking that you and Mrs. Carling have been to ask my master to use his influence on behalf of Mr. Carling?”
“You are, and he has refused,” said Austin curtly.
“I feared as much, sir. And there’s no hope that Mr. Lorimer, the Home Secretary, or the King himself, even now——”
“None that I can see.”
“I am very distressed, sir—very distressed indeed, but there’s still time—while there’s life there’s hope! Could you manage to come round here again to-night, sir—say at nine o’clock?”
“Here! What for?” asked Austin bluntly.
“I can’t explain, sir. I don’t quite know yet, but if you would come—ask for Sir Robert—I think there might be someone here—there might be a chance. Better not say anything to the poor lady, but perhaps you would give her my best respects, and try to cheer her up generally. Tell her not to despair.”
“I’ll come. And you’re a good chap, Thomson,” Austin said earnestly, though his own hopes were dead. He would have shaken hands with the little man, but Thomson evaded the proffered grasp and slipped back into the house.
Grace asked no question, but sat upright in her corner, with that strange, unnatural composure still possessing her.
They were on their way to the prison for their last interview with Roger, whose execution was fixed for eight o’clock on the following morning, and Austin, who had fought valiantly in the American Army in that last year of the Great War, had there seen death in many dreadful forms—the death of comrades whom he loved—dreaded this interview as he had never dreaded anything in his life before. Possibly for the first time in his life he felt an arrant coward, and when the moment came he was speechless. He just wrung Roger’s hands, bent and kissed them, and hastily retreated, quite unconscious of the fact that the tears were rolling down his face.
It was quite otherwise with Grace. She spoke gently, with a gracious smile to the watchful warders, whose guard over the prisoner must now be ceaseless till the end, and then clung to Roger,raising her lips to his, her great, grey eyes shining, not with tears.
“It’s not good-bye, darling,” she said softly. “It’s only till to-morrow—such a little time—perhaps even sooner—to-night, at the ninth hour—and we shall be at home together—at last. The light is coming—the great protection is over us!”
He thought, as Austin did, that for the time being at least she had become insane. It was better so, for her sake; but, oh, it was hard! He had to summon all his fortitude. The iron will that had sustained him through all these terrible weeks must sustain him to the last.
“Good-bye, my own dear love. God guard you and bring you to me in His own good time,” were his last words.
She flashed a radiant smile at him.
“Till to-morrow!” she said, and with that she left him, passing like a wraith, quite oblivious of the deep interest and sympathy of the officials, and of the prison chaplain who accompanied her and Austin to the outer gates, but with tactful delicacy refrained from speaking to her. He too thought, “it was better so.”
Winnie and little Miss Culpepper, pale-faced and red-eyed, were waiting anxiously for her return. She smiled on them too, as they took off her outdoor wraps and lovingly tended her.
“Yes, I will have some tea—just a cup. And I’m so tired I’m going to lie down for an hour or two. You see it won’t do for me to be a wreck when Roger comes home. That’s nice. Thank you, darlings. Youaregood to me. If I don’twake before nine will you wake me then?”
Like a child she submitted to be wrapped in a rest-gown and tucked up under the eiderdown on her bed. When Winnie stole in to look at her presently she was fast asleep.
“What does she mean about Roger coming home, and that we are to wake her at nine o’clock?” Winnie asked Austin when she rejoined the others.
“I don’t know. She’s been like that, poor girl, ever since we were with Sir Robert. He was brutal to her—brutal! I wish we had not gone, but you know how she insisted on doing so. She just stood and looked around the room, and I guess something snapped in her poor brain. She said something then about ‘the ninth hour,’ and it’s a queer coincidence, but directly after, old man Thomson, Sir Robert’s valet, followed us and asked me to go back there at nine o’clock—though why, he wouldn’t say, and I can’t surmise. But I’m going!”
“Did you tell her about that?”
“No. He asked me not to. And it didn’t seem any use to talk to her, poor girl; she was just insensible, as you saw her now, like an animated corpse.”
“How is Roger?”
“Well, I can’t quite say,” Austin acknowledged. “I think he was quite calm, but—well, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t! Thepadre—Mr. Iverson—has permission to stay the night with him. He’ll be there now, I guess.”
They spoke in hushed tones, as people do in the presence of death, and then lapsed into silence,sitting hand-in-hand, as unhappy a pair of lovers as could be found in London that night.
The evening dragged on. Time after time Winnie peeped into the bedroom, finding Grace still asleep, until just before nine, when Austin had departed to keep his appointment, she returned and whispered to Miss Culpepper that Grace had risen and was kneeling beside the bed.
“She is very still, but she’s breathing regularly and quietly. Look. I’ve left the door open. What ought we to do?”
“Don’t disturb her for a few minutes anyhow,” Miss Culpepper counselled; and again they waited, outside the door, whence they could just see the kneeling figure, watching and listening intently.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed and struck nine. At the sound Grace raised her head, then bowed it again.
Slowly the minutes passed, each, to those distressed watchers, seeming like an hour. A quarter past nine—half-past nine!
“I think we ought to rouse her now,” Winnie whispered anxiously. “She will be quite numb and cramped—if she hasn’t fainted!”
As she spoke the telephone bell sounded—a startling summons in that hushed place.