It seemed to Dominey that he had never seen anything more pathetic than that eager glance, half of hope, half of apprehension, flashed upon him from the strange, tired eyes of the woman who was standing before the log fire in a little recess of the main hall. By her side stood a pleasant, friendly looking person in the uniform of a nurse; a yard or two behind, a maid carrying a jewel case. Rosamund, who had thrown back her veil, had been standing with her foot upon the fender. Her whole expression changed as Dominey came hastily towards her with outstretched hands.
“My dear child,” he exclaimed, “welcome home!”
“Welcome?” she repeated, with a glad catch in her throat. “You mean it?”
With a self-control of which he gave no sign, he touched the lips which were raised so eagerly to his as tenderly and reverently as though this were some strange child committed to his care.
“Of course I mean it,” he answered heartily. “But what possessed you to come without giving us notice? How was this, nurse?”
“Her ladyship has had no sleep for two nights,” the latter replied. “She has been so much better that we dreaded the thought of a relapse, so Mrs. Coulson, our matron, thought it best to let her have her own way about coming. Instead of telegraphing to you, unfortunately, we telegraphed to Doctor Harrison, and I believe he is away.”
“Is it very wrong of me?” Rosamund asked, clinging to Dominey's arm. “I had a sudden feeling that I must get back here. I wanted to see you again. Every one has been so sweet and kind at Falmouth, especially Nurse Alice here, but they weren't quite the same thing. You are not angry? These people who are staying here will not mind?”
“Of course not,” he assured her cheerfully. “They will be your guests. To-morrow you must make friends with them all.”
“There was a very beautiful woman,” she said timidly, “with red hair, who passed by just now. She looked very angry. That was not because I have come?”
“Why should it be?” he answered. “You have a right here—a better right than any one.”
She drew a long sigh of contentment.
“Oh, but this is wonderful!” she cried. “And you dear,—I shall call you Everard, mayn't I?—you look just as I hoped you might. Will you take me upstairs, please? Nurse, you can follow us.”
She leaned heavily on his arm and even loitered on the way, but her steps grew lighter as they approached her own apartment. Finally, as they reached the corridor, she broke away from him and tripped on with the gaiety almost of a child to the door of her room. Then came a little cry of disappointment as she flung open the door. Several maids were there, busy with a refractory fire and removing the covers from the furniture, but the room was half full of smoke and entirely unprepared.
“Oh, how miserable!” she exclaimed. “Everard, what shall I do?”
He threw open the door of his own apartment. A bright fire was burning in the grate, the room was warm and comfortable. She threw herself with a little cry of delight into the huge Chesterfield drawn up to the edge of the hearthrug.
“I can stay here, Everard, can't I, until you come up to bed?” she pleaded. “And then you can sit and talk to me, and tell me who is here and all about the people. You have no idea how much better I am. All my music has come back to me, and they say that I play bridge ever so well. I shall love to help you entertain.”
The maid was slowly unfastening her mistress's boots. Rosamund held up her foot for him to feel.
“See how cold I am!” she complained. “Please rub it. I am going to have some supper up here with nurse. Will one of you maids please go down and see about it? What a lot of nice new things you have, Everard!” she added, looking around. “And that picture of me from the drawing-room, on the table!” she cried, her eyes suddenly soft with joy. “You dear thing! What made you bring that up?”
“I wanted to have it here,” he told her.
“I'm not so nice as that now,” she sighed, a little wistfully.
“Do not believe it,” he answered. “You have not changed in the least. You will be better-looking still when you have been here for a few months.”
She looked at him almost shyly—tenderly, yet still with that gleam of aloofness in her eyes.
“I think,” she murmured, “I shall be just what you want me to be. I think you could make me just what you want. Be very kind to me, please,” she begged, stretching her arms out to him. “I suppose it is because I have been ill so long, but I feel so helpless, and I love your strength and I want you to take care of me. Your own hands are quite cold,” she added anxiously. “You look pale, too. You're not ill, Everard?”
“I am very well,” he assured her, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Forgive me now, won't you, if I hurry away. There are guests here—rather important guests. To-morrow you must come and see them all.”
“And help you?”
“And help me.”
Dominey made his escape and went reeling down the corridor. At the top of the great quadrangular landing he stopped and stood with half-closed eyes for several moments. From downstairs he could hear the sound of pleasantly raised voices, the music of a piano in the distance, the click of billiard balls. He waited until he had regained his self-possession. Then, as he was on the point of descending, he saw Seaman mounting the stairs. At a gesture he waited for him, waited until he came, and, taking him by the arm, led him to a great settee in a dark corner. Seaman had lost his usual blitheness. The good-humoured smile played no longer about his lips.
“Where is Lady Dominey?” he asked.
“In my room, waiting until her own is prepared.”
Seaman's manner was unusually grave.
“My friend,” he said, “you know very well that when we walk in the great paths of life I am unscrupulous. In those other hours, alas! I have a weakness,—I love women.”
“Well?” Dominey muttered.
“I will admit,” the other continued, “that you are placed in a delicate and trying position. Lady Dominey seems disposed to offer to you the affection which, notwithstanding their troubles together, she doubtless felt for her husband. I risk your anger, my friend, but I warn you to be very careful how you encourage her.”
A light flashed in Dominey's eyes. For the moment angry words seemed to tremble upon his lips. Seaman's manner, however, was very gentle. He courted no offence.
“If you were to take advantage of your position with—with any other, I would shrug my shoulders and stand on one side, but this mad Englishman's wife, or rather his widow, has been mentally ill. She is still weak-minded, just as she is tender-hearted. I watched her as she passed through the hall with you just now. She turns to you for love as a flower to the sun after a long spell of cold, wet weather. Von Ragastein, you are a man of honour. You must find means to deal with this situation, however difficult it may become.”
Dominey had recovered from his first wave of weakness. His companion's words excited no sentiment of anger. He was conscious even of regarding him with a greater feeling of kindness than ever before.
“My friend,” he said, “you have shown me that you are conscious of one dilemma in which I find myself placed, and which I confess is exercising me to the utmost. Let me now advise you of another. The Princess Eiderstrom has brought me an autograph letter from the Kaiser, commanding me to marry her.”
“The situation,” Seaman declared grimly, “but for its serious side, would provide all the elements for a Palais Royal farce. For the present, however, you have duties below. I have said the words which were thumping against the walls of my heart.”
Their descent was opportune. Some of the local guests were preparing to make their departure, and Dominey was in time to receive their adieux. They all left messages for Lady Dominey, spoke of a speedy visit to her, and expressed themselves as delighted to hear of her return and recovery. As the last car rolled away, Caroline took her host's arm and led him to a chimney seat by the huge log fire in the inner hall.
“My dear Everard,” she said, “you really are a very terrible person.”
“Exactly why?” he demanded.
“Your devotion to my sex,” she continued, “is flattering but far too catholic. Your return to England appears to have done what we understood to be impossible—restored your wife's reason. A fiery-headed Hungarian Princess has pursued you down here, and has now gone to her room in a tantrum because you left her side for a few minutes to welcome your wife. And there remains our own sentimental little flirtation, a broken and, alas, a discarded thing! There is no doubt whatever, Everard, that you are a very bad lot.”
“You are distressing me terribly,” Dominey confessed, “but all the same, after a somewhat agitated evening I must admit that I find it pleasant to talk with some one who is not wielding the lightnings. May I have a whisky and soda?”
“Bring me one, too, please,” Caroline begged. “I fear that it will seriously impair the note which I had intended to strike in our conversation, but I am thirsty. And a handful of those Turkish cigarettes, too. You can devote yourself to me with a perfectly clear conscience. Your most distinguished guest has found a task after his own heart. He has got Henry in a corner of the billiard-room and is trying to convince him of what I am sure the dear man really believes himself—that Germany's intentions towards England are of a particularly dove-like nature. Your Right Honourable guest has gone to bed, and Eddy Pelham is playing billiards with Mr. Mangan. Every one is happy. You can devote yourself to soothing my wounded vanity, to say nothing of my broken heart.”
“Always gibing at me,” Dominey grumbled.
“Not always,” she answered quietly, raising her eyes for a moment. “There was a time, Everard, before that terrible tragedy—the last time you stayed at Dunratter—when I didn't gibe.”
“When, on the contrary, you were sweetness itself,” he reflected.
She sighed reminiscently.
“That was a wonderful month,” she murmured. “I think it was then for the first time that I saw traces of something in you which I suppose accounts for your being what you are to-day.”
“You think that I have changed, then?”
She looked him in the eyes.
“I sometimes find it difficult to believe,” she admitted, “that you are the same man.”
He turned away to reach for his whisky and soda.
“As a matter of curiosity,” he asked, “why?”
“To begin with, then,” she commented, “you have become almost a precisian in your speech. You used to be rather slangy at times.”
“What else?”
“You used always to clip your final g's.”
“Shocking habit,” he murmured. “I cured myself of that by reading aloud in the bush. Go on, please?”
“You carry yourself so much more stiffly. Sometimes you have the air of being surprised that you are not in uniform.”
“Trifles, all these things,” he declared. “Now for something serious?”
“The serious things are pretty good,” she admitted. “You used to drink whiskys and sodas at all hours of the day, and quite as much wine as was good for you at dinner time. Now, although you are a wonderful host, you scarcely take anything yourself.”
“You should see me at the port,” he told her, “when you ladies are well out of the way! Some more of the good, please?”
“All your best qualities seem to have come to the surface,” she went on, “and I think that the way you have come back and faced it all is simply wonderful. Tell me, if that man's body should be discovered after all these years, would you be charged with manslaughter?”
He shook his head. “I do not think so, Caroline.”
“Everard.”
“Well?”
“Did you kill Roger Unthank?”
A portion of the burning log fell on to the hearth. Then there was silence. They heard the click of the billiard balls in the adjoining room. Dominey leaned forward and with a pair of small tongs replaced the burning wood upon the fire. Suddenly he felt his hands clasped by his companion's.
“Everard dear,” she said, “I am so sorry. You came to me a little tired to-night, didn't you? I think that you needed sympathy, and here I am asking you once more that horrible question. Forget it, please. Talk to me like your old dear self. Tell me about Rosamund's return. Is she really recovered, do you think?”
“I saw her only for a few minutes,” Dominey replied, “but she seemed to me absolutely better. I must say that the weekly reports I have received from the nursing home quite prepared me for a great improvement. She is very frail, and her eyes still have that restless look, but she talks quite coherently.”
“What about that horrible woman?”
“I have pensioned Mrs. Unthank. To my surprise I hear that she is still living in the village.”
“And your ghost?”
“Not a single howl all the time that Rosamund has been away.”
“There is one thing more,” Caroline began hesitatingly.
That one thing lacked forever the clothing of words. There came a curious, almost a dramatic interruption. Through the silence of the hall there pealed the summons of the great bell which hung over the front door. Dominey glanced at the clock in amazement.
“Midnight!” he exclaimed. “Who on earth can be coming here at this time of night!”
Instinctively they both rose to their feet. A manservant had turned the great key, drawn the bolts, and opened the door with difficulty. Little flakes of snow and a gust of icy wind swept into the hall, and following them the figure of a man, white from head to foot, his hair tossed with the wind, almost unrecognisable after his struggle.
“Why, Doctor Harrison!” Dominey cried, taking a quick step forward. “What brings you here at this time of night!”
The doctor leaned upon his stick for a moment. He was out of breath, and the melting snow was pouring from his clothes on to the oak floor. They relieved him of his coat and dragged him towards the fire.
“I must apologise for disturbing you at such an hour,” he said, as he took the tumbler which Dominey pressed into his hand. “I have only just received Lady Dominey's telegram. I had to see you—at once.”
The doctor, with his usual bluntness, did not hesitate to make it known that this unusual visit was of a private nature. Caroline promptly withdrew, and the two men were left alone in the great hall. The lights in the billiard-room and drawing-room were extinguished. Every one in the house except a few servants had retired.
“Sir Everard,” the doctor began, “this return of Lady Dominey's has taken me altogether by surprise. I had intended to-morrow morning to discuss the situation with you.”
“I am most anxious to hear your report,” Dominey said.
“My report is good,” was the confident answer. “Although I would not have allowed her to have left the nursing home so suddenly had I known, there was nothing to keep her there. Lady Dominey, except for one hallucination, is in perfect health, mentally and physically.”
“And this one hallucination?”
“That you are not her husband.”
Dominey was silent for a moment. Then he laughed a little unnaturally.
“Can a person be perfectly sane,” he asked, “and yet be subject to an hallucination which must make the whole of her surroundings seem unreal?”
“Lady Dominey is perfectly sane,” the doctor answered bluntly, “and as for that hallucination, it is up to you to dispel it.”
“Perhaps you can give me some advice?” Dominey suggested.
“I can, and I am going to be perfectly frank with you,” the doctor replied. “To begin with then, there are certain obvious changes in you which might well minister to Lady Dominey's hallucination. For instance, you have been in England now some eight months, during which time you have revealed an entirely new personality. You seem to have got rid of every one of your bad habits, you drink moderately, as a gentleman should, you have subdued your violent temper, and you have collected around you, where your personality could be the only inducement, friends of distinction and interest. This is not at all what one expected from the Everard Dominey who scuttled out of England a dozen years ago.”
“You are excusing my wife,” Dominey remarked.
“She needs no excuses,” was the brusque reply. “She has been a long-enduring and faithful woman, suffering from a cruel illness, brought on, to take the kindest view if it, through your clumsiness and lack of discretion. Like all good women, forgiveness is second nature to her. It has now become her wish to take her proper place in life.”
“But if her hallucination continues,” Dominey asked, “if she seriously doubts that I am indeed her husband, how can she do that?”
“That is the problem you and I have to face,” the doctor said sternly. “The fact that your wife has been willing to return here to you, whilst still subject to that hallucination, is a view of the matter which I can neither discuss nor understand. I am here to-night, though, to lay a charge upon you. You have to remember that your wife needs still one step towards a perfect recovery, and until that step has been surmounted you have a very difficult but imperative task.”
Dominey set his teeth for a moment. He felt the doctor's keen grey eyes glowing from under his shaggy eyebrows as he leaned forward, his hands upon his knees.
“You mean,” Dominey suggested quietly, “that until that hallucination has passed we must remain upon the same terms as we have done since my arrival home.”
“You've got it,” the doctor assented. “It's a tangled-up position, but we've got to deal with it—or rather you have. I can assure you,” he went on, “that all her other delusions have gone. She speaks of the ghost of Roger Unthank, of the cries in the night, of his mysterious death, as parts of a painful past. She is quite conscious of her several attempts upon your life and bitterly regrets them. Now we come to the real danger. She appears to be possessed of a passionate devotion towards you, whilst still believing that you are not her husband.”
Dominey pushed his chair back from the fire as though he felt the heat. His eyes seemed glued upon the doctor's.
“I do not pretend,” the latter continued gravely, “to account for that, but it is my duty to warn you, Sir Everard, that that devotion may lead her to great lengths. Lady Dominey is naturally of an exceedingly affectionate disposition, and this return to a stronger condition of physical health and a fuller share of human feelings has probably reawakened all those tendencies which her growing fondness for you and your position as her reputed husband make perfectly natural. I warn you, Sir Everard, that you may find your position an exceedingly difficult one, but, difficult though it may be, there is a plain duty before you. Keep and encourage your wife's affection if you can, but let it be a charge upon you that whilst the hallucination remains that affection must never pass certain bounds. Lady Dominey is a good and sweet woman. If she woke up one morning with that hallucination still in her mind, and any sense of guilt on her conscience, all our labours for these last months might well be wasted, and she herself might very possibly end her days in a madhouse.”
“Doctor,” Dominey said firmly. “I appreciate every word you say. You can rely upon me.”
The doctor looked at him.
“I believe I can,” he admitted, with a sigh of relief. “I am glad of it.”
“There is just one more phase of the position,” Dominey went on, after a pause. “Supposing this hallucination of hers should pass? Supposing she should suddenly become convinced that I am her husband?”
“In that case,” the doctor replied earnestly, “the position would be exactly reversed, and it would be just as important for you not to check the affection which she might offer to you as it would be in the other case for you not to accept it. The moment she realises, with her present predispositions, that you really are her lawful husband, that moment will be the beginning of a new life for her.”
Somehow they both seemed to feel that the last words had been spoken. After a brief pause, the doctor helped himself to a farewell drink, filled his pipe and stood up. The car which Dominey had ordered from the garage was already standing at the door. It was curious how both of them seemed disinclined to refer again even indirectly to the subject which they had been discussing.
“Very good of you to send me back,” the doctor said gruffly. “I started out all right, but it was a drear walk across the marshes.”
“I am very grateful to you for coming,” Dominey replied, with obvious sincerity. “You will come and have a look at the patient in a day or two?”
“I'll stroll across as soon as you've got rid of some of this houseful,” the doctor promised. “Good night!”
The two men parted, and curiously enough Dominey was conscious that with those few awkward words of farewell some part of the incipient antagonism between them had been buried. Left to himself, he wandered for some moments up and down the great, dimly lit hall. A strange restlessness seemed to have fastened itself upon him. He stood for a time by the dying fire, watching the grey ashes, stirred uneasily by the wind which howled down the chimney. Then he strolled to a different part of the hall, and one by one he turned on, by means of the electric switches, the newly installed lights which hung above the sombre oil pictures upon the wall. He looked into the faces of some of these dead Domineys, trying to recall what he had heard of their history, and dwelling longest upon a gallant of the Stuart epoch, whose misdeeds had supplied material for every intimate chronicler of those days. When at last the sight of a sleepy manservant hovering in the background forced his steps upstairs, he still lingered for a few moments in the corridor and turned the handle of his bedroom door with almost reluctant fingers. His heart gave a great jump as he realised that there was some one there. He stood for a moment upon the threshold, then laughed shortly to himself at his foolish imagining. It was his servant who was patiently awaiting his arrival.
“You can go to bed, Dickens,” he directed. “I shall not want you again to-night. We shoot in the morning.”
The man silently took his leave, and Dominey commenced his preparations for bed. He was in no humour for sleep, however, and, still attired in his shirt and trousers, he wrapped a dressing-gown around him, drew a reading lamp to his side, and threw himself into an easy-chair, a book in his hand. It was some time before he realised that the volume was upside down, and even when he had righted it, the words he saw had no meaning for him. All the time a queer procession of women's faces was passing before his eyes—Caroline, with her half-flirtatious, wholly sentimentalbon camaraderie; Stephanie, with her voluptuous figure and passion-lit eyes; and then, blotting the others utterly out of his thoughts and memory, Rosamund, with all the sweetness of life shining out of her eager face. He saw her as she had come to him last, with that little unspoken cry upon her tremulous lips, and the haunting appeal in her soft eyes. All other memories faded away. They were as though they had never been. Those dreary years of exile in Africa, the day by day tension of his precarious life, were absolutely forgotten. His heart was calling all the time for an unknown boon. He felt himself immeshed in a world of cobwebs, of weakness more potent than all his boasted strength. Then he suddenly felt that the madness which he had begun to fear had really come. It was the thing for which he longed yet dreaded most—the faint click, the soft withdrawal of the panel, actually pushed back by a pair of white hands. Rosamund herself was there. Her eyes shone at him, mystically, wonderfully. Her lips were parted in a delightful smile, a smile in which there was a spice of girlish mischief. She turned for a moment to close the panel. Then she came towards him with her finger upraised.
“I cannot sleep,” she said softly. “Do you mind my coming for a few minutes?”
“Of course not,” he answered. “Come and sit down.”
She curled up in his easy-chair.
“Just for a moment,” she murmured contentedly. “Give me your hands, dear. But how cold! You must come nearer to the fire yourself.”
He sat on the arm of her chair, and she stroked his head with her hands.
“You were not afraid, then?” she asked, “when you saw me come through the panel?”
“I should never be afraid of any harm that you might bring me, dear,” he assured her.
“Because all that foolishness is really gone,” she continued eagerly. “I know that whatever happened to poor Roger, it was not you who killed him. Even if I heard his ghost calling again to-night, I should have no fear. I can't think why I ever wanted to hurt you, Everard. I am sure that I always loved you.”
His arm went very softly around her. She responded to his embrace without hesitation. Her cheek rested upon his shoulder, he felt the warmth of her arm through her white, fur-lined dressing-gown.
“Why do you doubt any longer then,” he asked hoarsely, “that I am your husband?”
She sighed.
“Ah, but I know you are not,” she answered. “Is it wrong of me to feel what I do for you, I wonder? You are so like yet so unlike him. He is dead. He died in Africa. Isn't it strange that I should know it? But I do!”
“But who am I then?” he whispered.
She looked at him pitifully.
“I do not know,” she confessed, “but you are kind to me, and when I feel you are near I am happy. It is because I wanted to see you that I would not stay any longer at the nursing home. That must mean that I am very fond of you.”
“You are not afraid,” he asked, “to be here alone with me?”
She put her other arm around his neck and drew his face down.
“I am not afraid,” she assured him. “I am happy. But, dear, what is the matter? A moment ago you were cold. Now your head is wet, your hands are burning. Are you not happy because I am here?”
Her lips were seeking his. His own touched them for a moment. Then he kissed her on both cheeks. She made a little grimace.
“I am afraid,” she said, “that you are not really fond of me.”
“Can't you believe,” he asked hoarsely, “that I am really Everard—your husband? Look at me. Can't you feel that you have loved me before?”
She shook her head a little sadly.
“No, you are not Everard,” she sighed; “but,” she added, her eyes lighting up, “you bring me love and happiness and life, and—”
A few seconds before, Dominey felt from his soul that he would have welcomed an earthquake, a thunderbolt, the crumbling of the floor beneath his feet to have been spared the torture of her sweet importunities. Yet nothing so horrible as this interruption which really came could ever have presented itself before his mind. Half in his arms, with her head thrown back, listening—he, too, horrified, convulsed for a moment even with real physical fear—they heard the silence of the night broken by that one awful cry, the cry of a man's soul in torment, imprisoned in the jaws of a beast. They listened to it together until its echoes died away. Then what was, perhaps, the most astonishing thing of all, she nodded her head slowly, unperturbed, unterrified.
“You see,” she said, “I must go back. He will not let me stay here. He must think that you are Everard. It is only I who know that you are not.”
She slipped from the chair, kissed him, and, walking quite firmly across the floor, touched the spring and passed through the panel. Even then she turned around and waved a little good-bye to him. There was no sign of fear in her face; only a little dumb disappointment. The panel glided to and shut out the vision of her. Dominey held his head like a man who fears madness.
Dawn the next morning was heralded by only a thin line of red parting the masses of black-grey snow clouds which still hung low down in the east. The wind had dropped, and there was something ghostly about the still twilight as Dominey issued from the back regions and made his way through the untrodden snow round to the side of the house underneath Rosamund's window. A little exclamation broke from his lips as he stood there. From the terraced walks, down the steps, and straight across the park to the corner of the Black Wood, were fresh tracks. The cry had been no fantasy. Somebody or something had passed from the Black Wood and back again to this spot in the night.
Dominey, curiously excited by his discovery, examined the footmarks eagerly, then followed them to the corner of the wood. Here and there they puzzled him. They were neither like human footsteps nor the track of any known animal. At the edge of the wood they seemed to vanish into the heart of a great mass of brambles, from which here and there the snow had been shaken off. There was no sign of any pathway; if ever there had been one, the neglect of years had obliterated it. Bracken, brambles, shrubs and bushes had grown up and degenerated, only to be succeeded by a ranker and more dense form of undergrowth. Many of the trees, although they were still plentiful, had been blown down and left to rot on the ground. The place was silent except for the slow drip of falling snow from the drooping leaves. He took one more cautious step forward and found himself slowly sinking. Black mud was oozing up through the snow where he had set his feet. He was just able to scramble back. Picking his way with great caution, he commenced a leisurely perambulation of the whole of the outside of the wood.
Heggs, the junior keeper, an hour or so later, went over the gun rack once more, tapped the empty cases, and turned towards Middleton, who was sitting in a chair before the fire, smoking his pipe.
“I can't find master's number two gun, Mr. Middleton,” he announced. “That's missing.”
“Look again, lad,” the old keeper directed, removing the pipe from his mouth. “The master was shooting with it yesterday. Look amongst those loose 'uns at the far end of the rack. It must be somewhere there.”
“Well, that isn't,” the young man replied obstinately.
The door of the room was suddenly opened, and Dominey entered with the missing gun under his arm. Middleton rose to his feet at once and laid down his pipe. Surprise kept him temporarily silent.
“I want you to come this way with me for a moment,” his master ordered.
The keeper took up his hat and stick and followed. Dominey led him to where the tracks had halted on the gravel outside Rosamund's window and pointed across to the Black Wood.
“What do you make of those?” he enquired.
Middleton did not hesitate. He shook his head gravely.
“Was anything heard last night, sir?”
“There was an infernal yell underneath this window.”
“That was the spirit of Roger Unthank, for sure,” Middleton pronounced, with a little shudder. “When he do come out of that wood, he do call.”
“Spirits,” his master pointed out, “do not leave tracks like that behind.”
Middleton considered the matter.
“They do say hereabout,” he confided, “that the spirit of Roger Unthank have been taken possession of by some sort of great animal, and that it do come here now and then to be fed.”
“By whom?” Dominey enquired patiently.
“Why, by Mrs. Unthank.”
“Mrs. Unthank has not been in this house for many months. From the day she left until last night, so far as I can gather, nothing has been heard of this ghost, or beast, or whatever it is.”
“That do seem queer, surely,” Middleton admitted.
Dominey followed the tracks with his eyes to the wood and back again.
“Middleton,” he said, “I am learning something about spirits. It seems that they not only make tracks, but they require feeding. Perhaps if that is so they can feel a charge of shot inside them.”
The old man seemed for a moment to stiffen with slow horror.
“You wouldn't shoot at it, Squire?” he gasped.
“I should have done so this morning if I had had a chance,” Dominey replied. “When the weather is a little drier, I am going to make my way into that wood, Middleton, with a rifle under my arm.”
“Then as God's above, you'll never come out, Squire!” was the solemn reply.
“We will see,” Dominey muttered. “I have hacked my way through some queer country in Africa.”
“There's nowt like this wood in the world, sir,” the old man asserted doggedly. “The bottom's rotten from end to end and the top's all poisonous. The birds die there on the trees. It's chockful of reptiles and unclean things, with green and purple fungi, two feet high, with poison in the very sniff of them. The man who enters that wood goes to his grave.”
“Nevertheless,” Dominey said firmly, “within a very short time I am going to solve the mystery of this nocturnal visitor.”
They returned to the house, side by side. Just before they entered, Dominey turned to his companion.
“Middleton,” he said, “you keep up the good old customs, I suppose, and spend half an hour at the 'Dominey Arms' now and then?”
“Most every night of my life, sir,” the old man replied, “from eight till nine. I'm a man of regular habits, and that do seem right to me that with the work done right and proper a man should have his relaxation.”
“That is right, John,” Dominey assented. “Next time you are there, don't forget to mention that I am going to have that wood looked through. I should like it to get about, you understand?”
“That'll fair flummox the folk,” was the doubtful reply, “but I'll let 'em know, Squire. There'll be a rare bit of talk, I can promise you that.”
Dominey handed over his gun, went to his room, bathed and changed, and descended for breakfast. There was a sudden hush as he entered, which he very well understood. Every one began to talk about the prospect of the day's sport. Dominey helped himself from the sideboard and took his place at the table.
“I hope,” he said, “that our very latest thing in ghosts did not disturb anybody.”
“We all seem to have heard the same thing,” the Cabinet Minister observed, with interest,—“a most appalling and unearthly cry. I have lately joined every society connected with spooks and find them a fascinating study.”
“If you want to investigate,” Dominey observed, as he helped himself to coffee, “you can bring out a revolver and prowl about with me one night. From the time when I was a kid, before I went to Eton, up till when I left here for Africa, we had a series of highly respectable and well-behaved ghosts, who were a credit to the family and of whom we were somewhat proud. This latest spook, however, is something quite outside the pale.”
“Has he a history?” Mr. Watson asked with interest.
“I am informed,” Dominey replied, “that he is the spirit of a schoolmaster who once lived here, and for whose departure from the world I am supposed to be responsible. Such a spook is neither a credit nor a comfort to the family.”
Their host spoke with such an absolute absence of emotion that every one was conscious of a curious reluctance to abandon a subject full of such fascinating possibilities. Terniloff was the only one, however, who made a suggestion.
“We might have a battue in the wood,” he proposed.
“I am not sure,” Dominey told them, “that the character of the wood is not more interesting than the ghost who is supposed to dwell in it. You remember how terrified the beaters were yesterday at the bare suggestion of entering it? For generations it has been held unclean. It is certainly most unsafe. I went in over my knees on the outskirts of it this morning. Shall we say half-past ten in the gun room?”
Seaman followed his host out of the room.
“My friend,” he said, “you must not allow these local circumstances to occupy too large a share of your thoughts. It is true that these are the days of your relaxation. Still, there is the Princess for you to think of. After all, she has us in her power. The merest whisper in Downing Street, and behold, catastrophe!”
Dominey took his friend's arm.
“Look here, Seaman,” he rejoined, “it's easy enough to say there is the Princess to be considered, but will you kindly tell me what on earth more I can do to make her see the position? Necessity demands that I should be on the best of terms with Lady Dominey and I should not make myself in any way conspicuous with the Princess.”
“I am not sure,” Seaman reflected, “that the terms you are on with Lady Dominey matter very much to any one. So far as regards the Princess, she is an impulsive and passionate person, but she is alsogrande dameand a diplomatist. I see no reason why you should not marry her secretly in London, in the name of Everard Dominey, and have the ceremony repeated under your rightful name later on.”
They had paused to help themselves to cigarettes, which were displayed with a cabinet of cigars on a round table in the hall. Dominey waited for a moment before he answered.
“Has the Princess confided to you that that is her wish?” he asked.
“Something of the sort,” Seaman acknowledged. “She wishes the suggestion, however, to come from you.”
“And your advice?”
Seaman blew out a little cloud of cigar smoke.
“My friend,” he confessed, “I am a little afraid of the Princess. I ask you no questions as to your own feelings with regard to her. I take it for granted that as a man of honour it will be your duty to offer her your hand in marriage, sooner or later. I see no harm in anticipating a few months, if by that means we can pacify her. Terniloff would arrange it at the Embassy. He is devoted to her, and it will strengthen your position with him.”
Dominey turned away towards the stairs.
“We will discuss this again before we leave,” he said gloomily.
Dominey was admitted at once by her maid into his wife's sitting-room. Rosamund, in a charming morning robe of pale blue lined with grey fur, had just finished breakfast. She held out her hands to him with a delighted little cry of welcome.
“How nice of you to come, Everard!” she exclaimed. “I was hoping I should see you for a moment before you went off.”
He raised her fingers to his lips and sat down by her side. She seemed entirely delighted by his presence, and he felt instinctively that she was quite unaffected by the event of the night before.
“You slept well?” he enquired.
“Perfectly,” she answered.
He tackled the subject bravely, as he had made up his mind to on every opportunity.
“You do not lie awake thinking of our nocturnal visitor, then?”
“Not for one moment. You see,” she went on conversationally, “if you were really Everard, then I might be frightened, for some day or other I feel that if Everard comes here, the spirit of Roger Unthank will do him some sort of mischief.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You don't know about these things, of course,” she went on, “but Roger Unthank was in love with me, although I had scarcely ever spoken to him, before I married Everard. I think I told you that much yesterday, didn't I? After I was married, the poor man nearly went out of his mind. He gave up his work and used to haunt the park here. One evening Everard caught him and they fought, and Roger Unthank was never seen again. I think that any one around here would tell you,” she went on, dropping her voice a little, “that Everard killed Roger and threw him into one of those swampy places near the Black Wood, where a body sinks and sinks and nothing is ever seen of it again.”
“I do not believe he did anything of the sort,” Dominey declared.
“Oh, I don't know,” she replied doubtfully. “Everard had a terrible temper, and that night he came home covered with blood, looking—awful! It was the night when I was taken ill.”
“Well no more tragedies,” he insisted. “I have come up to remind you that we have guests here. When are you coming down to see them?”
She laughed like a child.
“You say 'we' just as though you were really my husband,” she declared.
“You must not tell any one else of your fancy,” he warned her.
She acquiesced at once.
“Oh, I quite understand,” she assured him. “I shall be very, very careful. And, Everard, you have such clever guests, not at all the sort of people my Everard would have had here, and I have been out of the world for so long, that I am afraid I sha'n't be able to talk to them. Nurse Alice is tremendously impressed. I am sure I should be terrified to sit at the end of the table, and Caroline will hate not being hostess any longer. Let me come down at tea-time and after dinner, and slip into things gradually. You can easily say that I am still an invalid, though of course I'm not at all.”
“You shall do exactly as you choose,” he promised, as he took his leave.
So when the shooting party tramped into the hall that afternoon, a little weary, but flushed with exercise and the pleasure of the day's sport, they found, seated in a corner of the room, behind the great round table upon which tea was set out, a rather pale but extraordinarily childlike and fascinating woman, with large, sweet eyes which seemed to be begging for their protection and sympathy as she rose hesitatingly to her feet. Dominey was by her side in a moment, and his first few words of introduction brought every one around her. She said very little, but what she said was delightfully natural and gracious.
“It has been so kind of you,” she said to Caroline, “to help my husband entertain his guests. I am very much better, but I have been ill for so long that I have forgotten a great many things, and I should be a very poor hostess. But I want to make tea for you, please, and I want you all to tell me how many pheasants you have shot.”
Terniloff seated himself on the settee by her side.
“I am going to help you in this complicated task,” he declared. “I am sure those sugar tongs are too heavy for you to wield alone.”
She laughed at him gaily.
“But I am not really delicate at all,” she assured him. “I have had a very bad illness, but I am quite strong again.”
“Then I will find some other excuse for sitting here,” he said. “I will tell you all about the high pheasants your husband killed, and about the woodcock he brought down after we had all missed it.”
“I shall love to hear about that,” she assented. “How much sugar, please, and will you pass those hot muffins to the Princess? And please touch that bell. I shall want more hot water. I expect you are all very thirsty. I am so glad to be here with you.”