Janetwas not moved either by Gussy’s rapture or Dolff’s rage. To say that she was not relieved would be untrue, for it was, no doubt, a great relief to know that she was not in any way responsible for a man’s death. But beyond this her strongest feeling was annoyance, a painful sense that she was not quit of the consequences, that he was still there to be reckoned with, more near than ever, under the same roof. Would he be changed as she was by the catastrophe which had nearly cut off his life? or would he, returning to life from his unconsciousness, and probably knowing much less about it than any of those round him, take up everything from themoment the thread had dropped from his hands and expect her to do the same?
Janet had got a tremendous lesson, such a lesson as not one foolish girl in a million is ever exposed to: and all her lighter feelings—the mischievous pleasure of taking another woman’s lover from her, which is so often merely a piece of fun to an unthinking girl; the excitement of being made love to; the fascination of contact with the first man who had ventured to seize upon her attention, to take her interest for granted, to draw her, as it were, into the current of his own being—all these sensations had died in the horror with which that sudden murderous assault had filled her, and the double horror of being mixed up in it, held up before the world as the cause, with a stigma upon her forever. Janet had liked to amuse herself all her life, and it was irresistible to triumph over the composed and self-confident Gussy, to take her lover from her, and watch sarcastically behind backs the self-exposure of the victim, and laugh internally, though never without a half shame, at the “silliness,” which wounded Julia’s sharp perception, in her sister. Julia saw it as well as Janet, though she did not know the cause. And she had liked the bold love-making, the wicked looks aside which had at once placed her on a platform above Gussy; those confidences which Meredith had begun to make to her from the first, and which had at once established a secret link between them. He had been the interest and amusement of the dull life which Janet had never had time to get tired of, so interesting was the drama he had played for her and made her play; and she had liked to be made love to in that bold, presumptuous way. There was something piquant in it, especially in contrast with the clumsy devotion of Dolff. It had carried her at last a little out of her own control, in the hurrying sensations of the night of the ball: and the touch of jealousy after, and the complication of the events of that night—of the discovery of the papers which she was compelled to send him, and the meeting she was compelled to grant him for the sake of clearing up that mystery—had all added an impetus to the downward stream upon which Janet was going.
Had it not been interrupted so abruptly, it is probable that she might have been floated on beyond her own control, carried to depths beyond her anticipation, and become Meredith’s slave and victim, if not his wife. But it had scarcely got beyond the stage of amusement to Janet when it was thus cut in a moment, the link which was twisting round her severed at a blow. And now how glad she would have been to be donewith it, to hear of him no more, to wipe it entirely out of her life! It had occurred to her, indeed, that she might do that by leaving the Harwoods; but she was too young, although so independent and self-sustaining, to make up her mind easily to such a trenchant proceeding. She would have to explain to her friends at Clover why, after all her praises of the Harwoods, she left them so soon. She would have to take a great deal of trouble, probably to sacrifice much of her comfort—for Janet was not so entirely inexperienced as not to know that few governesses were treated so well as she was. Therefore, she rejected the idea of going away, or rather, it but flew through her mind as a suggestion which was much too decided and important to be adopted on her own responsibility.
But to hear of Meredith’s progress towards recovery troubled Janet extremely. It was like thrusting him upon her again, recommencing a business which she had been glad to believe concluded. She was annoyed and impatient—scornful of Gussy’s rapture, indisposed to hear anything further of the matter. When she left the room with her pupil, leaving the mother and daughter going over and over the minutest details—of how the patient had opened his eyes; how he had looked around with a bewildered glance; how his face had lighted up at the sight of Gussy, etc., Janet was almost angry at the fuss they were making, and provoked beyond description by their delight and endless anticipations.
“After this he’ll make progress every day,” Mrs. Harwood said.
“And oh, mamma, to think he is himself again—to think that he recognized me!” cried Gussy.
Oh, cried Janet to herself, if they but knew! She thought, like Dolff, of the last scene that had been present to his consciousness before that awakening, and Gussy’s kiss; of how he had stood laughing, holding her hands, not letting her go, making fun of Gussy; and the next thing he was aware of—a dim sick-room, a nurse in a white cap, and Gussy, who kissed him in her joy! It was all Janet could do not to burst out with something contradictory, something that would express all the contrariety of her feelings. It was a good thing to get out of the room, to be out of temptation. She did not remark Julia’s keen inspection of her in the vehemence of the perturbation in her own mind.
“Well,” said Julia as they went upstairs; “it’s a good thing he is better, though I wish Gussy would not be always so silly about him. Aren’t you glad he is better, Janet?”
“Did you think,” said Janet, “that I wished him to be worse?”
“Oh! I don’t know. I used to think you liked Charley Meredith; but I’m almost sure you don’t now.”
“One may not care for a man, and yet one may be glad he is better. I am sick,” cried Janet, unable to control herself, “of hearing his name.”
“Oh, so am I!” cried Julia. “Isn’t it enough to make one ill? And now there will be more of it than ever. We shall all be wanted to rejoice over him. I wish he had gone to his own chambers to be killed, and not here.”
By this time they had reached the school-room, which was their common property, and where no one could interfere with their talk. Julia threw herself into a chair before the fire and pursued her inquiries.
“Did you ever think to yourself,” she said, “Janet, how it was that Charley should have been assaulted like that?”
“Think!” said Janet, faltering. “I don’t know what good thinking would do.”
“That may be,” said Julia, “but one can’t help thinking, though it may do no good. I hate him so much myself that I understand it better than you can, who used to like him. It must have been some one who hated him—even more than me.”
“Don’t talk so about a—a crime, Julia: and don’t say me instead of I,” Janet cried, hoping to stop this embarrassing discussion.
“Oh, what does stupid grammar matter! My opinion is that it must have been something about a girl.”
“Julia!” cried the governess, taking refuge in the shock of conventional horror at such a suggestion from such a quarter.
“Oh, you know as well as I do what Charley was. I have heard even mamma say that he couldn’t resist making himself agreeable, whoever it was. That’s mamma’s way of putting it. Why, he has made eyes even at me—Gussy’s sister, and only fifteen, and hating him as I do! It stands to reason that he did it to everybody else. And suppose there was some silly girl who thought it meant something, and somebody belonging to her who wouldn’t put up with it? Oh, I’ve wished often I was a man and could knock him down!”
“When a man is lying so ill as he is, it is dreadful to talk of hating him.”
“Oh, but you can’t help it, however dreadful it may be! and, besides, he’s getting better. You don’t like him yourself.”
“I never said so,” said Janet.
“But I know. And you did like him once. What has made you change your mind? Do you know—but I won’t say it; you will be angry.”
“You had better say it—whatever you want to say.”
“Well, then, I think—you needn’t blaze out upon me, for of course I may be quite silly—Janet, I think you know something about it. There! Oh, you may kill me if you like with your eyes, but that won’t make any difference! I think you’ve known something about it all the time.”
Janet’s eyes gave forth a flash. If it had been Gussy who had made this charge instead of Julia, her mind was so excited and troubled that, in all likelihood, she would have burst forth with the secret which she had been so anxious hitherto to conceal. She stood looking at the girl, happy to feel that her blood did not rush to her cheeks as it had done already this evening. She said:
“I think you are mad, Julia, to ask me such a question.”
“Oh, I didn’t ask any question. I said I thought—and so I do, and nothing you can say will change me. Shall I tell you what I think? I think you were out at the door or at the staircase window—where Gussy always goes to watch for people—and that you saw it, and saw who did it, and won’t tell. I suppose it’s from a good motive,” said Julia, “to save somebody. I should do it myself, but that would be chiefly because I hatehim, not to give him the satisfaction. However, only wait till Charley Meredith gets well. Oh! trust him to find it all out. He’ll not let anybody off. He’ll have no mercy. Now, that’s my opinion, Janet, if you like to know.”
“They are very bold opinions,” said Janet; “scarcely what a girl should venture to express; but I was neither at the staircase-window nor at the door, and if all that you imagine besides is as true as what you say of me——”
Janet did not like to commit herself to an absolutely false statement, though she had no objection to deceive. She liked, when she could, to answer inconvenient questionsau pied de la lettrein a way which might be true. Thus she was not at the door in Julia’s sense of the word, but standing outside the door, perilously near it. She concluded with herself that, in saying she was not at the door, she was saying the exact and formal truth.
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Julia; “you may convince me as much as you like, but I’ll be of the same opinion still. The only thing is, I just warn you how it will be when CharleyMeredith gets well. He won’t forgive the man that did that. He won’t forgive you if you’re mixed up in it. Don’t be mixed up in Charley Meredith’s affairs, Janet. He’ll get to the bottom of it as soon as he is well.”
“You are a Daniel come to judgment,” said Janet, with a laugh.
How strange a thing a laugh was from her at such a moment! For, though Julia was only a child, what she said was true enough. Meredith, when he got well, was not a man who would blunder about as the policeman did, hearing every story, not knowing how to separate the grain from the chaff. Even, he was a lawyer too, she reflected, with a gleam of terror. He would know how to put things together. Perhaps—this was possible, too—Dolff’s face, white and distorted by passion, might have been revealed to him as he fell, as it was to Janet. He might remember as his faculties came back, and he would be able to follow it out.
Going back upon that evening, Janet began to trace with horror the evidence that might be got together. There were the people at the library who saw them meet and speak to each other, and who might have seen them walk off together, thus identifying her at least. And Meredith himself would know that she must have witnessed the attack upon him. Her anxieties had been quieted by this long want of cessation from all progress. But now that he was getting well! Oh, Julia was right. He would let no one off; he would take full vengeance for his injuries. All the world would know how she was mixed up in it! She would have to appear, to be cross-examined, to tell all she knew, and explain how she was there, and it would be in all the newspapers.
This was what chiefly struck Janet with anguish and terror unspeakable. Everybody would know it! Her friends would look upon her darkly; the vicarage—even that kind house would close its doors. To be traitor to the people who had been so kind to her—to meet another woman’s lover, the betrothed of the daughter of the house! Who would have anything to say to a governess who had done that? And though she might tell the episode of the papers, and thus account for her communications with Meredith, who would believe her? Janet had an hour or two of extreme anguish turning this all over in her mind.
After this, however, she grew a little more composed. Perhaps Meredith would be kept back by the fact that he himself would be affected as much as she by any such revelation. Probably he would not, for his own sake, like it to be knownthat he had clandestine meetings with the governess. This was of all others the thing that would damn him, not only in St. John’s Wood, but wherever there were families to which he might wish to recommend himself. If it all came out, Gussy would no doubt be lost to him (if he had ever cared for Gussy), and not only Gussy but every young lady in his own position, and the mother of every young lady. To have clandestine meetings with the governess—to make love behind backs to the governess! Janet’s heart calmed down in its tumultuous beating when this blessed thought came into her mind. No, he would not betray himself in that way. He might not care for betraying her, but he would not betray himself. He would not allow himself to be held up to the contempt of the world, put into all the papers, perhaps intoPunch, with a shabby girl clinging to him in the dock.
Janet, who thought of everything in the sharply acute state of her perceptions, remembered too that, while the ladies would think it the blackest treachery to carry on a correspondence with the governess, the newspapers would take the other side, and would be chiefly indignant concerning the wrongs of the poor girl, blighted by her dependent position, whom this monster was endeavoring to beguile and lead astray. Ah, no! Meredith would not lay himself open to these critics. He would keep her out of it, since otherwise he himself would suffer. It calmed her entirely after a time to follow out this point of view.
But, oh! if he could but be spirited away to the other end of the world. Oh, if she could but be quit of him—but forget that she had ever seen him! Janet looked towards the room of the convalescent with a tremor. What would his feelings be? Would he expect to take up the thread where it had dropped? Would he go on telling her with his eyes what a fool Gussy was? how ridiculous was her confidence in herself! how much more he cared for herself, Janet, than for anybody else in the world! This, she thought, would be the most intolerable of all.
Afterthis fright, however, which was—so much is that poison to one which is another’s antidote—so joyful for Gussy, everything relapsed into a still and apprehensive silence which to two in the house seemed full of fate. Better and better was the news that came from the sick-room. Morning aftermorning Gussy came to the breakfast-table pale but radiant with the bulletin. Better, and better, and better. He not only knew her, but had smiled and said a few words. He had a long and refreshing sleep. He was promoted to a little solid food. The doctor was satisfied, nay, astonished, at the progress made. But all this took a long time.
There was a long interval of that dark and melancholy weather which gives winter its special horror in London—one day more dull and gray and dismal than the other, depressing in any circumstances, miserable when there is anxiety and suspense within. The new year had begun with the chills and snows and dreariness which so often accompany it. The only relief in the prospect was that Dolff ere many days had passed would have to return to Oxford. If it only might be that he could go without seeing the convalescent? He wished this himself in a half-and-half way sometimes, hoping that he might not be compelled to congratulate Meredith on his recovery, or indeed face him at all, though he was glad that he was getting well: yet sometimes also with a lurking desire to see him, to judge for himself how much he was changed, and if he had any consciousness of “what had happened.” Dolff did not indicate to himself the tremendous moment of his passion by any more clear description than this. Perhaps on the whole he wished more than he feared to see Meredith again. Then perhaps he would get out of his eyes the white face upon the pavement, with the faint lamplight upon it, which he had never been able to forget.
The day on which Meredith was first allowed to see the family was a Monday in the middle of January. His couch was wheeled into the drawing-room in the afternoon, Gussy proudly attending and announcing her patient. The daylight was beginning to wane, and to two at least of the party it was more easy to see him than it was for him to see them. Janet had withdrawn into the further part of the room, as was becoming in her position, and Dolff stood uneasily near the door, removing himself, without intention, in the mere excitement and uneasiness of this first meeting, from the light. Meredith was still very pale, and the change in his face, which had been florid red and white, was striking. His black hair, and the beard which had grown during his illness, made his pallor still more apparent, but it was scarcely the paleness which gives refinement and spirituality to a face worn with suffering. He shook hands with them all, and turned his head, asking, “Is that Miss Summerhayes?” in a way which compelled Janet to come forward, though so muchagainst her will. He glanced up at her with something of his old look, a sort of smile in his eyes, the telegraph of old, which implied some secret understanding between them, and which once had so fluttered Janet’s heart. But it only brought a sickening thrill now of alarm and repugnance. This was the only thing she noted specially in the first interview, a look which showed her that all was not over, that he was not ready yet to relinquish the amusement which she had given him (if that was how to describe it), and that, though he had been at death’s door, and was so much altered in appearance, in himself he was not changed. Janet was too young to know that to be at death’s door is no sufficient reason for any change in that strange and perverse thing which is called the heart. She had been a little moved by the sight of him, so colorless and feeble, notwithstanding the change in her own feelings towards him. There is something piteous in the sight of a strong man, young, and in the flower of life, lying helpless upon a couch, ministered to like a child. It touched her heart, and something of the reverence for weakness, which is inherent in humanity, moved her as she came unwillingly, yet obediently to his side. But that side glance, the old confidential look, the smile which might have been called a leer by a more severe spectator, caught Janet in the midst of her momentary awe, and drove her back upon herself. She was not, as the reader knows, so lofty in her views, so generous in her motives, as would become a heroine; but she was startled and shocked by this, and thrown back into her original dismay and fear.
After this he saw the family every day. It became the habit of the house as he slowly recovered (and it was very slow progress) to have the couch rolled into the drawing-room every day, visitors shut out, and the whole efforts of the household, which were not very effectual in that department, devoted to the amusement of the patient. They were not very clever in the way of amusement. Mrs. Harwood talked to him, occasionally lighting upon an old story which had some interest for the invalid, and Gussy talked with no such reservoir of interest to fall back upon, generally dropping after a time into household details, which did not amuse him at all.
Janet, when she was not able to escape, sat demurely silent as far off as possible, her head bent over her work; and Dolff, who seemed to have been seized by a feverish desire to be present during these séances, as if something to his detriment might happen if he were absent, stood about, sometimes standing at one window, sometimes at another, adjured by his mother and sister not to get into the light, uncomfortable andunnecessary everywhere. Meredith, as he got able to talk a little, took up again his old habit of somewhat contemptuous banter to Dolff. He begged to know if he had not been singing lately—if Miss Summerhayes had been cruel and ceased to play the accompaniments, which she was so clever at. It was evident that his mind was far from any painful associations in respect to Dolff. He declared that it would amuse him to hear one of the old songs.
“Not the new ones,” he said, with that exasperating smile, “the refined ones, which Miss Summerhayes prefers. Sing me one of those, Dolff, that you brought from the Vic.”
“One of those! They’re not fit for a drawing-room, Meredith; you know they’re not.”
“We heard them in the drawing-room often enough, didn’t we, Gussy! Come, humor me—everybody humors me—sing me—that one, you know, with the chorus—” and the sick man hummed a bar or two of the most uproarious of those songs which had so startled the decorous family.
He laughed and flashed at Janet—who by some extraordinary trick of nature was aware now, when her back was turned to him, of those looks—a wicked glance. Nothing he could have asked would have been more painful, nothing could have shone more distinctly the mockery and malice of his intention. A man who had nearly died calling upon his almost murderer for a rollicking music-hall song! It was a ghastly request to the two performers, who looked at each other, or, rather, who looked each in the direction of where the other was, with a sort of helpless, mutual appeal.
“Why don’t you do it, Dolff, when Charley asks you? What does it matter, if it’s not very suitable, so long as it amuses him?”
Dolff muttered something about being out of practice, not having sung anything for weeks.
“No,” said Meredith, “I know how everybody has denied themselves for me. Never mind; I shall like it just as much.”
“Can’t you go and do it, Dolff?” cried Gussy, impatiently, “when he tells you it will amuse him? It is not for you, to show off how well you can do it. I daresay it will amuse him more if you do it very badly. What does it matter if you are in practice or not?”
Once more Dolff murmured something to the effect that he did not like to be laughed at, with his head down between his shoulders and his chin on his breast.
“Good heavens!” cried Gussy, “as if it mattered! Ishould have thought you would be glad to be laughed at, so long as it amused him.”
Dolff turned his head towards Janet in an appeal for help. She was as unwilling as he was, and felt the tragic ridicule of the proposal even more keenly, as well as the malice and cruel amusement in Meredith’s eyes. She knew that he was trying to catch her attention to make her the confidante of his meaning as usual; but Janet kept her eyes fixed upon her work, and would not see. At length, however, she rose up, and putting away the needlework she was busy with, went to the piano. If it had to be done, it was better to do it without further remark. She had played the first bars of the accompaniment several times over before Dolff reluctantly followed her. It was almost the first time he had voluntarily addressed Janet in all those weeks. He said, sullenly, “Does he want to drive me mad? Is that his revenge?” over her head.
Janet replied, playing softly,
“He knows nothing yet. He wants to make us both ridiculous, for no reason. Sing; I’ll help you all I can.”
Dolff breathed a sigh that fluttered the music upon the piano.
“What pluck you have,” he said, with unwilling admiration.
He had sworn never to trust her again, never to have anything to do with her; but how hard it was when he stood by her thus, and felt the charm of her presence, the readiness and courage and support of her little alert soul.
“Sing,” she said, firmly, holding down the beginning notes to make abruyant, noisy dash of sound and give him courage.
And Dolff sang—like a martyr—giving forth the uproarious, would-be fun of the words as if they were a psalm, stumbling over every second line, losing his place, forgetting what came next. The audience laughed behind them audibly, noisily, as indeed was right enough, and the effect intended by the song. But it was not at the song they laughed, but at the singer and his ludicrous gravity, and the embarrassment which was freely attributed to temper, both by his mother and sister.
Mrs. Harwood was a little offended at last by the laughter of the others though it was an absurd performance. A woman soon becomes weary of ridicule when called forth by a child of her own.
“You are very merry,” she said. “I never heard you laugh so much before, Gussy, at your brother’s performance.”
“It is very absurd, mamma.”
“It is very absurd, I know,” said Mrs. Harwood, with a littlerising color, “and I think it was very self-denying of Dolff to consent to make himself ridiculous for Charley’s amusement. You ought to be a little grateful to him instead of making fun of him. Many would not have done it,” said the mother, with a toss upward of her head.
“Mamma! why, he used to sing like that every evening when he came home first.”
“Don’t you interfere, Ju. If he did, he has seen since that, as he said, it was not appropriate to a drawing-room: and I think it is very good of him, exceedingly self-denying and kind, to do it—when he is more or less making a fool of himself—to amuse Charley.”
“Dear Mrs. Harwood,” said Meredith, from his sofa, “I am getting selfish; you are all so good to me. And I am very much obliged to Dolff. I have not laughed so much since—I hope he doesn’t mind. Thanks, Dolff; that’s capital. You’ve sung it like—like the great—what do you call the man?—Barry himself. Let us have another, please.”
But Dolff hurried off as soon as he had uttered the last note, with a sense of humiliation which nothing else could have given him—humiliation, contempt of himself, misery which could not be gauged by any moral estimate. He felt as if all that he had ever done to Meredith was fully paid and atoned for by the exhibition he had thus been compelled to make: and that, if this were to go on, he would fly at the fellow’s throat some day and this time make sure work of it.
His look, his laugh—which had never stopped—which began before the performance began, which was not at his song but at him, roused every grim possibility in Dolff’s nature. Was that to be his revenge, the coward? a revenge like a woman’s, and yet more cruel. To make him ridiculous—to hold him up to derision. And Gussy, with her smile, backing up that fellow, who had bewitched her! Dolff suddenly bethought himself of all he knew, and of what the effect would be upon Gussy if he reported to her what he had seen and heard. This thought sobered him and calmed down the tumult in his veins. If Gussy knew—if she could be made aware that, as Meredith laughed at himself, Dolff, so had he laughed at her, and that to another woman—a woman the deceiver loved, or pretended to love.
Dolff was but a rough fellow, hot-tempered, wanting in delicacy of feeling—but when he thought of the effect of that enlightenment upon his sister he shrank within himself. No; it would be too much to let her know. It was true, also, that he could not let her know without betraying his own dreadfulsecret, and ruining Janet. Why should he mind ruining Janet, who had cared so little either for the honor or truth of her friends! But he began to reflect, with a softening heart, that Janet had certainly stood by him. She had prevented him from giving himself up at first. She had held him up all along. She had not abandoned him even now, but supported him in that hideous song, though she hated it.
Poor Dolff! it was a sad thing for him to have stood so close to her at the piano, to have felt the spell again, though she had not so much as looked at him. No doubt it was her fault at the first, led astray by that fellow and his blandishments—but since, there was not a word to be said against her; she had stood by him, sustained him, kept him from committing himself—even in the horror of this song she had made it bearable by sharing the scorn, by covering him when he failed. Perhaps he had been hard upon Janet! Oh, if that little fact, that short, all-important scrap of time could be but blown away, made to vanish and to be heard of no more! Oh, if he could but forget, and return to what he was before! Many a man has had the same thought before Dolff: a little scrap of time, a single day, an hour or two—and to think that should influence, darken, perhaps ruin, a whole life; and that no power on earth could do away with it—not that of all the kings and potentates that ever were! At all events, Dolff added to himself fiercely, in conclusion, if only that fellow were out of the house—if only it were not the first idea of everybody to nurse and tend and amuse him. Amuse him! and that he himself, of all others, should be made to exhibit and do tricks like a monkey for Charley Meredith’s sake!
“Our songster has forsaken us,” said Meredith; “but it was very good while it lasted. Dolff has a great deal of expression, Mrs. Harwood. You may not like that sort of thing, which is not exactly, as he said, adapted for drawing-rooms, but he does it very well; not quite so well as before Miss Summerhayes converted him, but still well enough. It seems to me, Gussy, as if the conversion was not going on——”
“Indeed, I don’t at all know what you refer to,” said Mrs. Harwood; “nor how my son wanted conversion, Charley—and by Miss Summerhayes.”
“I only meant musically,” said the patient, with a little air of languor. He added, “I have laughed too much. It is a pleasant way of exhaustion, but it is exhaustion all the same.”
“I was afraid it would be too much for you,” cried the ever-anxious Gussy; “you over-estimate your strength. Lay back your head, dear Charley, and perhaps you will get a little sleep.”
“I take great liberties with you all,” he said, “but not so much as to go to sleep in your mother’s drawing-room, Gussy.”
“Oh, my dear boy, don’t think of that,” said Mrs. Harwood, at once forgetting his offence before this exhibition of weakness.
“You are spoiling me,” he said, half closing his eyes. “How am I ever to go out into the world again after all this coddling?”
“Ask Miss Summerhayes to play one of those nocturnes she plays so well: that will do as well as sleep,” said Gussy.
He put out his hand for hers, drawing it beneath the rug that covered him. Gussy’s countenance beamed with a mild rapture as she sat close by the couch with her hand in his. It was pleasant to this luxurious person to hold in his—whoever the owner of it might be—a woman’s hand.
And Janet sat and played—softly, entering into the dramatic situation notwithstanding the repugnance and revolt in her heart. She could not help entering into herrôle—soothing the invalid with soft music, rolling forth gently from the piano, in subdued notes, the spirit of a nocturne which was full of balmy night air and the soft influences of the stars—yet in herself feeling all that was unlike to this, an impatience which she could scarcely restrain, a fierce dislike and resentment. He had made her share in Dolff’s ridiculousness, and now he made her play him to sleep like a slave, like something that belonged to him and had no right to contravene his will. Her heart rebelled, though her fingers obeyed. Oh, if he could but be pushed away—banished somewhere out of her sphere, never to be seen again. His laugh was intolerable; his look more intolerable still. Some time or other, she felt, she would say to him, before them all, “Don’t look at me, don’t take me into your confidence. I will not have your confidence.” She knew what he would do if she were driven to such a folly. He would open his eyes wide and appeal to Gussy to know what was the matter. “Have I said anything to Miss Summerhayes that could convey that idea?” he would ask with the most guileless innocence. And Janet knew that there would be nothing to reply.
All this was while he had not remembered, while the events of that night had not returned to his mind. But they would return, she felt sure, as he got stronger. He would remember everything—the share she had in it, and Dolff’s face in his passion. Oh, dreadful thought! for then what would he do?
Itwas not till a few days after this that Meredith’s growing strength permitted a reference to the circumstances of his “illness,” as they all called it, which, of course, was not at all concerted, but occurred quite unintentionally in the course of the conversation. One or two things had been said before he took any part in the talk himself. At length, rousing himself from a sort of reverie, he said.
“How was it, I wonder, that I was so lucky as to be knocked down at your door? Whoever the man was, he did me a good turn there; but how was it that I was found at your door? It was not in the evening, you say—which would have explained itself.”
“It was about five o’clock,” said Julia, suddenly interposing. She had treasured up all the details in her mind.
“About five o’clock!” said Meredith, looking round him with elevated eyebrows. “Now, tell me, some one, what could I be doing at five o’clock at this door?”
“And you were expected to dinner at half-past seven,” said Julia again.
“Evidently,” said Meredith, “she has entered into the mystery of the situation. What was I doing at five o’clock, being expected at half-past seven, at this door?”
“I have often thought of it,” said Gussy, “and wondered if you were coming to say you could not come to dinner. You had clients who stopped you several times before.”
He gave her a glance and laughed, but Gussy was quite unsuspicious, and instanced the clients in perfect good faith.
“Poor clients!” he said; “they have been left to themselves for a long time, but they don’t seem to have been clamoring for me. I don’t think it could be that.”
“Perhaps you were going to call somewhere in the neighborhood,” suggested Mrs. Harwood.
“I don’t think it could be that either—I don’t make many calls, and none about here. Try again. I must find it out.”
Janet on this occasion was seated full in view. She had not been able to change her position, as she generally did when he was brought in. She did not look up or take any notice. But Janet was aware that her head was bent stiffly, not naturally, over her work, and that in her whole appearance there must be the rigor of an artificial pose. Her head wasbent lower than it need to have been; her needle stumbled in her work, pricking her fingers; and her downcast face, in spite of her, was covered with a hot and angry flush. And he could see her, plainly, distinctly, near him as she had not allowed herself to be since before “the accident” had occurred. He did not take any notice for a little time, being apparently much engaged with his own thoughts; but presently he looked up, and caught the expression of both form and face as she sat in the full light of the window. Oh, that it should have so happened to-day, instead of on any of the preceding days in which it would have been of no consequence! Janet, through her drooping eyelashes, saw—as she could have seen, somehow, had he been behind her—a slight start and awakening in his face: and then he put up his hand to support his head, and fixed his eyes upon her under that shield.
“You are tired, Charley!” she heard Miss Harwood saying.
“No, no; not tired a bit, only thinking.”
His thinking was done with his eyes fixed on Janet, reading (she was sure) the dreadful consciousness which she felt to be in her. She waited, trembling, for his next words.
“I think,” he said, “a light begins to dawn upon me. I had been at Mimpriss’s, the library; I suppose on my usual quest for music.”
Janet did not know what might come next.
She had seen various glances directed towards her which made her think he would not spare her. She had made it a principle to forestall everything that could be said about herself.
“Oh, yes,” she said, hastily, “now I remember! I saw Mr. Meredith there.”
“You never said so before, Janet.”
“I think I must have said so, the first evening. Since then nobody has thought of such details.”
He looked at her doubtfully, with some vagueness.
“Now I begin to recollect,” he said; “I was at Mimpriss’s, and walked along, because it was his way home, with—a man I met: and then—yes, I’m beginning to remember. In a little time I shall have it all clear.”
He fixed his eyes upon her again under the shelter of his hand. How they seemed to burn into her! She sat quite still, unnaturally still, with her eyes fixed upon her work. Oh, how they burned, those eyes! they seemed to make holes in her, to reach her heart. But this was as far as he had gone as yet. He was beginning to see her in the shops, on thepavement by his side—talking to him. Under the cover of his hand he kept asking her,
“What more? What more?”
“You don’t remember with whom it was you were walking?” said Gussy breathlessly.
“Hush, I’m thinking—it is coming, very vaguely, like a thing in the dark.”
“Janet, perhaps you saw what sort of man it was with whom Mr. Meredith was walking?”
“No,” said Janet. She was unable to form more than this one word: and she never looked at him, but stumbled on at her work, steadying her hands with a tremendous effort.
He saw well enough the perturbation in which she was, though none of the others might remark it; and she saw how he looked at her. Now the smile broke out again, more malicious than ever.
“No,” said Meredith, “I don’t suppose Miss Summerhayes would see him. I must have met him some time after she saw me at the shop. But I begin to get hold of it all. It was a dark night, and the lamps were lighted. My friend must surely have left me——”
“I was about to say,” cried Gussy, “he could not have been with you there, or he must have come in with you, and told us how it was.”
“There was nobody with me, then?”
“Nobody, except the man who picked you up and the policeman, who is always coming back to say he’s on the track of the murderer.”
“The murderer! That gives one an uncomfortable conviction, as if one had really been killed. I have a kind of vision of a face. When does this policeman generally come? I should like to have a talk with him. He might throw some light upon my very dim recollection.”
“Dolff is the one who sees him when he comes,” said Mrs. Harwood. “I did not, myself, feel equal to it; and Dolff seemed the right person.”
“Ah, yes; and so kind of him,” said Meredith. “I have been surrounded with true kindness. Dolff, please come and tell me—what does the policeman say?”
“Not much,” said Dolff, from the dark corner in which he had established himself.
Meredith turned half round towards him.
“Is the fellow any good?”
“No good at all,” cried Dolff. “He has always a new cock-and-bull story. He is no good.”
“And none of you in the house saw anything?” Meredith said.
“Well, Charley, it was night. There was nobody at the window; and, had there been, they could have seen nothing. We did not even hear much. It must all have been done very quickly. My dears,” cried Mrs. Harwood, with a shiver, “how can we be thankful enough! You might have been killed, Charley. A minute more, and they say there would have been no hope.”
Even Meredith was respectful enough to be silent for a moment. But he resumed immediately,
“It is strange that no one should have seen anything. I should have thought—And who opened the door? Did anyone ring to get in? How was it? Perhaps that would help me to pull my thoughts together. Some one must have rung the bell; some good Samaritan.”
“No. It was Vicars who heard something, and ran to see what it was,” said Gussy. “Vicars is very quick-eared. He runs whenever there is any commotion.”
“Ah!” said Meredith again.
He put up his hand once more to cover his eyes, and under his regard Janet for the first time broke down. She got up hastily and threw her work from her.
“Shall I make the tea, Mrs. Harwood?” she said, in a trembling voice.
“Poor Janet,” said Mrs. Harwood. “She has never quite got over it. It made such an impression upon her nerves.”
“I think,” said Gussy, “it might have made more impression upon my nerves than upon Janet’s.”
“Oh, please don’t think of my nerves,” said Janet. “If you will let me, I will pour out the tea.”
Meredith said nothing. He was following out, with his brain still a little confused, the clue he had got hold of. It was Janet, certainly it was Janet. He read it in every line of her stiffened figure and conscious countenance, and in the overwhelming agitation which had at last triumphed over her self-control. Yes, he had met her in the library, and it was with her he had walked towards the ambush laid for him. What more? Was there anything more? He had in his mind a vague reminiscence of something else which he had seen, which a little more thinking would perhaps enable him to master. She must have seen what happened if it was she who was with him, as he believed. She must be aware, if not who it was that had assaulted him, at least how it was. He kept on thinking while they talked round him, trying to quickenhis own feeble brain into action, and saying to himself that she must know. If she knew, why was she silent? Then it occurred to Meredith what the reason was.
He glanced at Gussy, sitting by him, and even upon his face there came a certain uneasy color. Betray to Gussy hisrendezvouswith Janet! Ah, he understood now why Janet did not speak. She dared not. She must have stolen indoors somehow, and concealed the fact that she had ever been out. It would be her ruin to make her confess. Perhaps Meredith would not have cared so very much for this, if it had not appeared to him that he himself would cut but an indifferent figure—paying his addresses to the daughter of the house, and intriguing with the governess? He went over the same ground which Janet had already traversed, and he confessed to himself that it would not do. But what was this consciousness in his mind that he knew, or had known something more?
“Bring Charley his tea, Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood. “I am sure he wants his tea. It is a nice habit for a man, which I hope you will keep up, Charley, when you are well. I always like to see a young man find pleasure in his tea.”
Her soft voice ran on while Dolff very unwillingly, and with averted face, carried the tea to Meredith. What was it that this dark, stormy, half-averted face suggested to the sick man? Dolff leaned over him for a moment, very unwillingly holding out the tea to him, offering him cake and bread-and-butter, which simple dainties were now part of the invalid’s regimen. Meredith caught that view of Dolff’s face with a certain shock, with a quickened interest, almost anxiety. What did it mean? There was something which he recollected, which he could not recollect—some fact that might throw light upon everything. He was startled beyond measure by the sight of Dolff’s face Dolff! there could be nothing in him to excite anyone. Why was it that his heart began to beat at the sight of Dolff? He could not make it out—it had something to do with his accident. What was it. But presently Meredith felt his head begin to ache and his brain to swim. He leaned back upon his pillows with a sigh of impatience. Gussy was standing by his side in a moment asking,
“Was he tired—did he feel giddy?”
Meredith answered with a disappointment and petulance, which in his weak state nearly moved him to tears,
“I can’t think, that is the worst of it. I begin to remember a trifle here and there. I have got the length of remembering who was with me, and I know there is something more.”
“Don’t try to think any more—leave it till to-morrow. Youknow,” said Gussy, “dear Charley, the doctors say it will come all right; but you must do it justice, and not force it. There is no hurry, is there? You are not obliged to begin working directly again.”
“No, I’m not obliged to begin working,” Meredith said.
It was not necessary to enter into explanations, and to tell her how his mind was occupied. And, as a matter of fact, he remained very quiet all next dayen attendantthe great event and privilege of being allowed to walk across the hall to the drawing-room, and disport himself from chair to chair at his pleasure. From time to time during the day he did, indeed, take up the broken thread where it had dropped from him and try to tack it on to something. But he could not do it. He traced himself along the road from Mimpriss’s with Janet on his arm, in the faint lamplight; but at the door he found himself stopped short. One word more would complete the task—one link and he would know all about it, as Janet did, who would never say what it was: but upon that link he could not get hold.
The event of the afternoon was accomplished with great success. He walked unassisted, though feeling as if his legs did not quite belong to him, into the drawing-room, the ladies rising to receive and admire him, as if he had been a child taking its first walk.
“Why, he’s a perfect Hercules!” cried Mrs. Harwood. “He walks as well as any of you. Thank God, my dear boy, that you have got on so well. I think we may feel that you are out of the wood now.”
“Oh, don’t encourage him too much, mamma! He won’t be kept down. He is too venturesome. Fancy, nurse tells me that he has been thinking—actually thinking all day.”
“How very unguarded of him!” said Mrs. Harwood, with a laugh. And then the usual circle was made round him, and the tea poured out to refresh him after his exertion.
It was while the bread-and-butter was going round that Priscilla, the parlor-maid, came into the room which was so pleasant with firelight and smiling faces, and announced that the detective wanted to speak to the gentleman—Dolff’s name was very well known since this inquiry had begun, but it was still to “the gentleman” that this official asked to speak.
“He thinks he has found out something now,” said Priscilla with a faint sniff of scepticism.
Priscilla sensibly thought that a man who had been on this job for so long and had discovered nothing was a poor creature indeed.
“Who is the gentleman that is wanted?” said Meredith. “It is Dolff, I suppose, as the man of the house. But why should Dolff be bored with this?—it is my business if ever any business was. Mrs. Harwood, may we have him in here?”
“Certainly, Charley—if you are quite sure that you can stand it.”
“Why shouldn’t I stand it? I am quite well. I don’t even feel weak. Let us have him in here.”
Mrs. Harwood looked at Gussy and Gussy looked at the patient.
“I am very much afraid it will try him, mamma. Still, as he would hear the voices in the hall, which might excite him more——”
“Of course it would excite me more. Thanks, my kindest Gussy, though you scold me, you are always on my side.”
Here Dolff spoke from the corner in which during theseséanceshe always took shelter.
“This is a new man,” he said. “He’s always got a different thing to suggest, and it’s very distracting—hadn’t I better see him this time?”
“I think Dolff is right,” said Mrs. Harwood.
“No,” said Meredith, “I want distraction. Let’s have him here.”
He did not omit to note the fact that Dolff retired further still into his corner as the policeman came in.
The detective, who was in plain clothes, but not a lofty member of his profession, made a sweeping bow all round, and looked a little embarrassed as he found himself among a company of ladies. He looked round for Dolff, whom he knew, and then at the stranger in the centre of the group, whom he had never seen before, but who distinctly assumed the principal place.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I don’t see the gentleman I’ve seen before. Oh!—yes—I beg your pardon.”
He turned again to the corner, from which Dolff had emerged a little.
“You needn’t mind me,” said Dolff, “there is the gentleman who is most interested, Mr. Meredith.”
Meredith had his eyes fixed on Dolff. The young man was like a thunderstorm, dark, heavy, and lowering, his eyelids half covering his eyes, his shoulders shrugged up, his head down between them. A vague light was breaking upon the question. At this moment Dolff stooped down to recover something he had dropped. Meredith uttered a quick, low cry.
“What is it? What is it? This is too much for you Charley,” said Gussy.
His eyes were fixed on Dolff in the corner. They were widening and brightening, the iris dilating, the eyes almost projecting, or seeming to project, with the intensity of his gaze.
“Ah!” he said, with a long-drawn breath.
He had found it at last—the thing which he had remembered yet could not remember. Janet’s eyes, drawn to him with a sort of fascination, divined what it meant, and her heart sank. Gussy, who had no such prescience, thought only of excitement and fatigue to her patient.
“Oh, what is it? you are overdone?” she said. “You must do nothing more to-day.”
When he turned to her he had a smile on his lips.
“I am not overdone,” he said, “on the contrary, I have made great progress. I have got new light. I have got back my memory, and now I remember everything. Pray, Dolff,” he said, quietly, “don’t go away. You must help us with your experience.” And he laughed—a laugh full of mockery, which somehow, to two at least of the persons present, seemed like a death-knell.
Dolff, who had made a step or two towards the door, stopped with an obedience too ready and complete. He saw the change in Meredith’s face, and felt that the hour of vengeance which he had, he thought, eluded, was now about to come. He cast a dull glance at Janet, half of appeal, half of despair—and saw that she thought as he did, and was holding her breath in intense attention. She understood, but did not sympathize. She would not stand by him now, he felt instinctively, though she had stood by him before.
“Well,” said Meredith, “excuse me, I have kept you too long waiting. You are after the fellow who knocked me down, officer—have you got any trace?”
“Well, sir,” said the policeman, “you might say nearly murdered you. I’m glad to see you so well again.”
“Thanks,” said Meredith, “as I’m so well, we’ll say only knocked me down: and if he hadn’t taken me at a disadvantage in coming up behind me, I suppose I ought to have been able to give a good account of him.”
“Ah!” said the policeman, “one of those fellows he wouldn’t face a gentleman like you. I’m sorry to say we’ve no trace of him—nothing as I could act upon: but I’ve got the man as saw it from the other side of the street, and he says he could pick out the man from any dozen. He says he would know his face again wherever he saw him; he’s got a notion,besides, of where the fellow’s to be found. I was thinking as you might like to question him yourself; I have got him just round the corner, waiting with one of my mates, if you’d like to see him yourself.”
“Ah!” said Meredith, “it wouldn’t be a bad thing. What do you say, Dolff? Don’t you think we might have this man—who could recognize the cad who hit me behind my back, here?”
Dolff’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He stood in his corner, and glanced at the speaker, but did not answer a word.
“I could have him here in a moment,” the policeman said.
“It would be interesting,” said Mrs. Harwood, “but a little exciting; and, if he saw him so well, why didn’t he secure him there and then?”
“His attention, ma’am, was called off by the gentleman as he thought was dying; but I don’t think as it is too late.”
Did the detective glance into the corner too, at Dolff standing in dark shadow against the wall?
“I am only afraid it will be too much for you in your weak state,” said Gussy, looking anxiously at her patient.
“We’ll let Dolff decide,” said Meredith, with once more that dreadful laugh. “Come, give us your advice, as you have had all the previous information. Shall we have this man in who can identify—the murderer, Dolff?”
There was a pause, which even to the unsuspecting ladies had something dreadful in it. Dolff cleared his throat and moistened his parched lips.
“You can have him—if you wish it, I suppose?” he said.
The crisis, however, passed off for the moment in an unexpected way—for Meredith’s strength suddenly forsook him, and he had to be taken back to his room in something very like a faint.
Rememberingis a very slow progress when your mind is confused by serious illness, weakness, and the breaking off for a time of all threads of meaning in the mind. Meredith took it up again in the morning, though not with the momentary gleam of conviction which had flashed upon him; and he worked very hard at it, as he might have worked at a case in his practice for the Bar or a mathematical problem. But it was harder than either of those. He made out easily enoughhis meeting with Janet at Mimpriss’s, and guessed rather than remembered that he had walked home with her, and thus exposed himself to being knocked down at Mrs. Harwood’s door; but he did not make out until he had returned to the question—his faculties freshened by a night’s sleep, and the new energy of the morning—why it was that he had met Janet, or that there was any special reason for their meeting. It flashed upon him all at once that he had made the appointment; that he had written to her to ask her to meet him; and then he remembered all at once the papers and the mystery which the papers had thrown so little light upon. He half started from his couch with excitement when it burst upon him that he was under the same roof as the mysterious recluse in the wing: and thus laid himself open to a grave reproof from his attendant, who called upon him to recollect that he had been very ill, that his escape was half-miraculous, and that to put his health in jeopardy by suffering himself to get excited would be “more than criminal.” He believed that she meant scarcely less than criminal, but he was humble, and expressed the deepest penitence.
“I was only thinking,” he said, “and something suddenly flashed upon me.”
“Thinking is the very worst thing you could do,” said the nurse, severely, “and to have things flashing upon you is what I cannot allow. If it occurs again I must appeal to the doctor.”
The nurse was a lady, so that he could not quench her as he would have done had she been Mrs. Gamp, and had to apologize again. But the compulsory pause did him good, for when he returned to the subject without any more starts and flashes, it all became clear to him again from the night of the ball upwards. The various events of that night came back like a picture to his mind. It had occupied him entirely in the short intervals that occurred between that discovery and the assault upon him at Mrs. Harwood’s door. Since then he had remembered nothing about it till now.
And now: he was under the same roof—he would have, as he got better and better, unbounded opportunities of finding out what that mystery was. The couch was now to be altogether discarded. He was to be allowed to walk and to sit in a chair like other people. Vicars the mysterious would be under his eye, and Mrs. Harwood—and Gussy in her present condition, softened with anxiety for him, and joy in his recovery, would disclose anything he might ask from her. He knew that she could not keep any secret from him now—if it were a secret she knew.
He felt greatly elated by the idea of the discovery which was so near, which lay under his hand, which he must be able to complete with his present advantages, and the thought of it led him very far on. True, he had almost forgotten Janet and the immediate yet lesser problem which he had to solve,i.e., how he came to be knocked down and almost killed at Mrs. Harwood’s, and who had done it. He left the other subject with a sigh and came back to this again for the moment. Yes, he had received from Janet the papers which she had put together for him—received them, he remembered, without a word, which had piqued and made him resolve to compromise Janet, and show her what a farce it was to be demure with him—at least, to compromise Janet as much as he could without compromising himself. It was for that reason, he remembered, that he insisted upon going all the way with and talking to her as only a lover had any right to do—for that reason, and also because she had a great attraction for him, far more than Gussy had ever had. He began to recollect even the things she had said—her little struggles against his appropriation of her, her gradually yielding—all that is most delightful for a suitor of his kind to recollect.
He liked to feel himself the cause of emotion in others—he smiled as he thought of it. Poor little Janet; she was angry and she was horrified. She felt probably that it was she who had brought him into the great danger under which he had fallen, and she was desperate to see that his illness had separated them more than ever, and made Gussy mistress of the situation. He forgave her, therefore, for her averted looks and unyielding face. She must know how it had all come about. He was certain from her looks that she knew, but she would not betray herself by telling, and he would not betray her by forcing her to tell, for in that case he would betray himself too.
Who could it be, he again asked himself, who had fallen upon him, and assaulted him in that terrible way? Meredith was not conscious of having enemies of that old-fashioned kind. There might be plenty of men who did not like him, as there were plenty of men whom he did not like; but between that and trying to murder him there was a great difference. He was not a man of the highest morals, perhaps, but he did not inflict injuries which would give any man a right to fling himself upon him in this way. It was a new idea to think that it might be a lover of Janet’s: but what lover could Janet have—some young fellow from the country, perhaps, driven frantic by seeing his beloved in such close colloquy with another man.
Meredith’s reason, however, rejected this hypothesis. Theyoung man from the country would not be such a tragical fool as to rush upon an unknown stranger and try to murder him solely because that stranger was walking home with his sweetheart. No! and besides, he remembered something—something which had been presented to his intelligence at the very last moment before that intelligence was temporarily quenched—something—what was it that he remembered? It was all perfectly clear up to this point. He saw every step as distinctly as if it were in a case he had studied from a brief, but here the evidence broke down. And yet it was lying somewhere in a corner of his mind if he could only get at it. He knew that it was there.
“How is our patient to-day?” said Gussy, coming in, with the privilege of her long nursing, after Meredith had made his toilette, and was lying on the sofa to rest after that operation.
The nurse shook her head.
“Our patient,” she said, “has been thinking. He has been using his mind a great deal too much—he has been smiling to himself and knitting his brows as if he were trying to remember something. You will please to tell him, Miss Harwood, that this sort of thing will not do. I have done so, but he does not mind me.”
“How cruel of you to say so!” said Meredith, “when you know that I mind you in everything! I never take an invigorating glass of soda-water without asking you if I may.”
She shook her head again.
“It is not glasses of soda-water that are in question, but using your head, Mr. Meredith, when it’s not in a fit state.”
“With two or three holes in it,” said Meredith, ruefully.
“No; you must not,” said Gussy, soothing him. “I am glad you think you have found a clue, but that is enough for to-day.”
Yes, it was enough for to-day; he was compelled in his weakness to acknowledge that he could do no more.
“And you must not think. You must not even attempt to think,” said Gussy; “thinking is not a thing for you to do. Promise me you will not try.”
He took her hand to reassure her, but he did not promise, and even in the act of holding Gussy’s hand and looking up tenderly into her face in requital of her care, he glanced round to make sure that Janet saw this little affectionate episode. He wished her to see, with a sense of pique at the indifference she had shown, and a desire that she should be made aware how little her indifference was shared by others. In his weak state it was doubly necessary to him to be surrounded by careand attention, to have love to wait upon and consider him in all things. He was pleased for himself to caress and be caressed, but he loved to have a spectator to whom he could make those little traitorous asides which increased his enjoyment, or whom he could at least mortify with the sight of his entire mastery over some one else if he had ceased to move her.
But, though this little play with the feelings of others pleased him, he did not give up on that account the quest upon which his mind had entered. Meredith had no inclination to let off or pardon the offender who had so nearly taken his life. Whoever it might be, he was determined to hunt him out and punish him. And he only relinquished this, the process in his mind of putting together such evidence as he had got possession of and working it out, as he might have put aside any piece of manual work till his fatigue had passed away and he was able to take it up again. It would not do to throw himself back by getting a headache, by injuring his nerves or his sleep. His mind was sufficiently trained to enable him to do this; to put thoughts aside when they hurt him, to take them back again when he was in a fit state to do so—which is a capacity always very astonishing to those who have never learned to discipline and rule their thoughts.
Janet thought with relief that whatever suspicions may have gleamed across him, whatever half recollections might have formed in his mind, they had passed away like clouds, when she saw him submitting to all Gussy’s half-nurse, half-lover attentions, leaning back upon his pillows, suffering himself to be silenced and soothed, smiling upon his anxious ministrant, and professing to do everything she told him.
“Was there ever so docile a slave?” he said; “I have no will but my lady’s.”
“You mean patient,” said Gussy, with the soft flush that lit up her face, “and it is your nurse whom you obey.”
“Fortunately the two things are the same in my case,” he said.
To think that he could indulge in this badinage while his mind was still following out the thread upon which another man’s life hung, was incredible to Janet. She thought it had all passed from his mind, and that she and her secret, and, still more, Dolff and his, must now be safe. And presently she was asked to go again and play for the soothing of the invalid, a request which she obeyed with suppressed indignation. Why should she be made to minister to him too—she whose eyes had been opened, who had just escaped, or hoped that she hadescaped from him, almost at the risk of her life? Janet was impatient of him, and half disappointed after the excitement into which his tentative questions and looks had thrown her, that he had let it drop again and float off in nothingness. She was quieted in her fears, but she almost resented it, and despised the man who had so little nerve and force left.
Janet was wrong, it need scarcely be said. Meredith retired a little earlier than usual on the pretence of being tired. He lay very still in the quiet of his room, which nobody but the nurse was now permitted to enter, till his headache was quite gone, and then he returned to the search of his own mind and recollections, and to the finding out of the something which he remembered, yet for the moment had forgot.