Rhoda answered with diffidence. Lady Sarah could put her own case well, of course, and it was evident that she quite believed all that she was saying. Rhoda began to doubt, herself, whether the upheaval in the domestic life at the Mill-house would not result in a change for the worse all round, and not for the better.
“Couldn’t you meet Sir Robert ever such a little way?” she suggested timidly.
“How? Just tell me how.”
“Would it really be such an infliction to take a journey with him to a country you have never visited? You would stay at the best hotels, enjoy yourself in your own way, only with your husband looking on, instead of right out of it. I’m sure you could trust him not to interfere with your amusements; all he would ask would be to be your companion, your protector.”
Lady Sarah screwed up her pretty features expressively. It was plain that the prospect had no charms for her. But she was silent a moment and then she threw out her arms with a sigh.
“That’s what I shall have to do, I suppose,” said she. “But it will be horrid—for both of us. Well,” she rose and nodded casually without putting out her hand: “at least now you understand me better than you did, even if you can’t find any excuses for my shocking behaviour.”
She was quite her old self again, mocking, laughing, contemptuous, charming.
Rhoda wondered, when she was alone, whether there was any possibility of touching her heart, or of making her realise her responsibilities in life.
She seemed to be absolutely without any sense of them; and although Rhoda was inclined to believe her account of the relations between her and Jack, realising as she did that there were no depths in the wayward woman, no heart-yearnings to be satisfied, she asked herself, in a kind of terror, whether such negative virtues were not even more hopeless to deal with than would have been the stormy passion of a guilty love.
Onthe following morning Sir Robert went to Jack’s room before that young man was up, and sitting on the edge of his bed, gave him such a searching catechism, ending with such a severe lecture, that his late ward was surprised at the thoroughness with which the baronet, his fears once roused, tackled the subject of his wife’s flirtation.
The result of this was satisfactory in the main to Sir Robert. Jack appeared to be perfectly frank and only slightly ashamed of himself. He protested that he and Lady Sarah had never been more to each other than sympathetic companions and devoted friends, and that, while he admitted he was fonder of her than he had ever been of any woman, they had never exceeded the limits of innocent flirtation; and Jack reminded the baronet that he must have been aware, all this time, that they did flirt.
Sir Robert scarcely knew how to meet this.
It was true that his wife had openly flirted with Jack before him; but coquetry was ingrain in her nature, and when she had nobody else to amuse herself with, she even, upon occasion, coquetted, much to his delight, with her husband himself.
The upshot of the conversation was that he obtained from Jack a solemn promise to go away without an attempt to communicate with Lady Sarah, and to travel abroad for a time, undertaking the while not to correspond with her.
Upon this promise Jack was allowed to leave the house at once, under an appearance of perfect amity with its master; and the simple-minded baronet congratulated himself on having got out of a difficulty and saved his brilliant wife from further danger, in a fairly satisfactory manner.
When Lady Sarah came downstairs, she was met by her husband, who escorted her into the morning-room, and told her, very gently and without any further appearance of anger or resentment, that he and Jack had talked over the matter of their conversation of the previous night, and that they had both come to the conclusion that the best thing to be done was that all relations between the young man and his friends at the Mill-house should be broken off for the present.
Lady Sarah, sitting by the window with her lips compressed and her hands tightly clasped, listened in dead silence. When he had finished she paused, and receiving no reply, at length said:
“Well! I hope you’re satisfied that we’ve done the best thing possible to bury this unhappy affair of the loss of the picture?”
“Oh, quite,” said she lightly, in a hard, scoffing tone. “Jack and I are each put in a corner, and bidden not to turn our faces round from the wall to look at each other. Nothing could be better.”
“I wish you wouldn’t take it like that, my dear. You must realise that you have been playing with your reputation,” he said.
“Oh, hang my reputation. What’s the use of having a husband at all if his presence isn’t sufficient security for his wife’s good behaviour?”
It was “a nasty one,” and it was meant to be so. Sir Robert drew back, wounded.
“It’s by your own wish,” said he rather drily, “that our relations are not closer than they are.”
“Certainly. And how long is this arrangement to last? How long is it going to take my invalid reputation to get well again?”
Sir Robert frowned uneasily.
“Do you mean that you want to know when Jack can come here again?”
“Yes. People will talk, you know. And instead of my intercourse with him being looked upon, as it always was, and as it rightly was, as perfectly innocent, people will put their heads together, and talk about what Sir Robert ‘found out.’ ”
“We must risk something,” said Sir Robert shortly. “We risk as little as we can. I want, if you please, your word of honour that you will hold no sort of communication with him until I give you leave to do so. That you will neither see him nor write to him nor receive letters from him.”
“Oh, I must promise, I suppose. Though it’s rather hard upon him, considering that the picture affair was my fault, and not his at all.”
“He must expect to take his share of the blame,” said Sir Robert. “And now, my dear, since we shall be more dependent upon each other’s society, I hope you will not find me very exacting or very tiresome.”
His tone was full of tenderness, but it met with no response from Lady Sarah. Perhaps, in the circumstances, it was scarcely likely that the spoilt beauty would receive his overtures graciously. She rose, shrugged her shoulders, and saying briefly, “Oh, I shall be very good,” she went out of the room forgetting that she had had no breakfast.
Sir Robert looked depressed and uneasy. It was not a good beginning, certainly, of the happy domestic life he had begun to hope for.
Before the day was over it became plain that Lady Sarah had thought the matter out, and had made up her mind what part to play.
She showed herself wonderfully bright, lively, charming, not only to her husband, but to Rhoda, so that Minnie raised her eyebrows, and, after making futile guesses as to what could have happened, and as to the reason of Jack Rotherfield’s abrupt disappearance, expressed the opinion that her aunt was too amiable to be able to “keep it up.”
But she was wrong. Day after day passed and still Lady Sarah was sweet-tempered and bright, playful with her husband, amusing with Rhoda and Minnie, and affectionate to Caryl.
Sir Robert was delighted at this new phase of his wife’s character, and congratulated himself, dear, simple man, on the accident which had seemed so terrible at the time, which had given him an opportunity of putting matters on a sound and safe footing.
But Rhoda and Minnie, with their acute feminine perception of character, detected something forced in Lady Sarah’s laughter, something insincere and hollow in her amiability. She chatted with a vivacity which was almost feverish, and her laughter did not, to their keen ears, ring quite true.
And then Rhoda could not help noticing that Lady Sarah became suddenly much more fond of taking walks by herself than formerly, and saw her coming out of a little newspaper shop in the High Street, where it was very unlikely that she would buy either books or stationery.
Rhoda, ashamed of herself for the thought, came nevertheless to the conclusion that Lady Sarah went there to get letters which she could not safely receive at home.
The suspicion was a dreadful one to bear, for if she was right, Rhoda saw that Lady Sarah had not scrupled to break her promise to her husband as soon as it was made.
Rhoda changed her own line of conduct a little, gave up, as much as possible, her share of Sir Robert’s work, in the hope that his wife would take it up. The only result was, however, that, used to Rhoda’s orderly ways, poor Sir Robert soon got into a hopeless muddle with his notes and manuscripts, when he was thus suddenly left once more to his own devices, while Lady Sarah secretly enjoyed his discomfiture.
Rhoda, meanwhile, kept almost entirely to Caryl’s rooms, except when he went out, when she never failed to accompany him. She scarcely ever got a moment to herself, and she had been thus almost confined to the house for a fortnight, when, running down the hill to the pillar-box at the corner to post a letter to one of her sisters, she caught sight of a motor-car turning into a side-road, and asked herself, with a horrible shock of suspicion and surprise, whether it was not that of Jack Rotherfield.
It was dusk, and she knew there was a possibility that she might have been mistaken; but the presence of Jack in the neighbourhood, in spite of his promise and Lady Sarah’s, was only too probable, and much against her own inclination, Rhoda felt obliged to keep a look out for eventualities.
When she got home, she was surprised to find Lady Sarah in Caryl’s room, sitting by the boy, holding his hand, and speaking to him with much more than her usual kindness and sweetness.
Rhoda held her breath, and her cheeks blanched with a growing fear. Was this only a coincidence, the reappearance of Jack Rotherfield, and the sudden undergrowth in Lady Sarah of something like an ordinary mother’s love for her child?
Rhoda could not but ask herself the question; and when Lady Sarah looked up at her quickly, and holding out her hand, said: “Ah, Miss Pembury, I’ve been trying to interest Caryl, but you are his real mother, and I hope you always will be.” Rhoda could scarcely make an audible answer, so strong was her conviction that important events were impending.
Lady Sarah was dressed for dinner, and was looking, Rhoda thought, even handsomer than usual, her eyes being very bright, and her whole countenance suffused with an unusual softness, as if at last she had found out how to feel.
It was with a deep anxiety at her heart that Rhoda quickly made her own toilet, and hurried downstairs. Dinner was now usually a very lively affair, as Lady Sarah’s new high spirits seemed always at their highest when she was with her husband and Rhoda together. On this occasion, however, she was scarcely herself. She asked questions without waiting for the answers, and laughed without reason.
And through it all Rhoda noticed with pain that the new affection she had just shown to her boy, whom she had kissed with real heartiness when she left him, was not present in her manner when she addressed her husband.
Sir Robert felt that something was wrong, but evidently did not know what to make of the change in his wife. He asked her rather diffidently if she felt quite well, and was answered quite snappishly in the affirmative.
After dinner Lady Sarah made an excuse of a slight headache to retire to her own rooms, and Rhoda, on the alert, also made an excuse, so that she might be on the watch for developments.
She did not go upstairs, however, but slipping out of the house by the garden door, waited about in the shadow of the trees under the east wall, and kept her eye on the windows of Lady Sarah’s rooms.
She could see that some one was flitting about between the three rooms, bedroom, dressing-room and boudoir. Then there was an interval, and Rhoda presently saw Lady Sarah, in her motor-coat, hat and veil, come quickly and stealthily out of the house, carrying her travelling bag in her hand.
The girl could scarcely suppress an exclamation of horror. She remained, however, shivering and without uttering a sound, until Lady Sarah came close to her and put out her hand to open the side-gate which led into the road.
As she did so, she uttered a soft whistle.
And the sound was echoed from the other side of the wall.
The key was in the lock, when Rhoda sprang forward and touched Lady Sarah on the hand.
“Don’t go,” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh, Lady Sarah, think of your boy! Come back, come back!”
Lady Sarah had sprung away from her, and Rhoda, commanding the door in the wall, stood erect, blocking the way through.
“What do you mean? What do you want?” she hissed out fiercely.
“I want you to consider what you’re doing. I know that Mr. Rotherfield is waiting outside: I know that his car is in one of the side roads.”
“You are a spy,” cried Lady Sarah.
“I couldn’t help myself. I caught sight of the car before dinner, and, and——”
“And you lay in wait for me! I might have expected it!”
“Could I do anything else? I’ve said nothing to anybody. No one but me has the least idea of anything being wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong.”
“Oh, there is, there is. You want to run away, from your home, your husband, your child. Lady Sarah, you are fond of Caryl; I could see it in your eyes this evening. You looked at him just as one wanted you always to look. Remember how he looked at you in return, remember the touch of his hand on your cheek. Oh, you wouldn’t like him to lose you; you wouldn’t like to lose him. Think what you’re doing, think, think. You will never be able to come back. How can you be happy, with all your friends cut off, your home wrecked, your own father and mother rendered miserable and ashamed for you. Lady Sarah, you’re not heartless; I’ll never believe it after seeing you with Caryl to-night. Come back, come back.”
Lady Sarah’s eyes flashed. She was crying with rage as well as with disappointment and alarm. Rhoda had unintentionally raised her voice during her impassioned entreaty, and Lady Sarah knew that Jack, waiting on the outer side of the wall, must know by this time that their plan was in danger of frustration.
Rhoda, indeed, did not content herself with entreaty. By the interposition of her person between Lady Sarah and the door, she made it impossible for the wilful woman to escape.
For this time, at least, it was plain that the escapade must be given up.
“You will tell Sir Robert, of course,” she sobbed out.
“No, no, no. I don’t want to make mischief. I want to prevent it. But will you keep your word if you promise not to try to go away again? Tell me, tell me, that you will. Oh, Lady Sarah, you must, you must. The shock of your going away, the scandal, the horror of it, would kill your own boy.”
“Nonsense. You’d better let me go and get it over. Sir Robert will soon forget me. Let me pass.”
She had flung herself on Rhoda, who, desperate, used her last weapon.
“If you go,” she said firmly, “I’ll tell Sir Robert what I know about the scarred hand, and Mr. Rotherfield shall be had up for Langton’s murder.”
“You wretch!”
But though Lady Sarah uttered the word with all the fierceness of which she was capable, she dared not, in the face of this threat, go any further with her wicked plan.
“All right. I give way,” she said in a tone of rage and despair.
Rhoda trembling and sick at heart, saw Sir Robert’s wife tear off her coat and veil, and hurry back into the house.
Rhoda had gained a victory, but what was the price to be paid? That there would be a reckoning to meet she felt sure, and it was with a heavy sense of foreboding, and with none of the spirits of a conqueror that she in her turn went, slowly and timidly, back to the house.
Rhodatook care to let Lady Sarah have plenty of time to get inside the house, and to go upstairs, before she followed.
She desired nothing less than anothertête-à-têtewith the enraged and disappointed woman whom she had just saved from disgrace and guilt. For Lady Sarah was not grateful: the last glance she had thrown at the girl who saved her was full of a bitterness which prepared Rhoda for what she had to expect from her.
As Rhoda glided quietly into the hall from the garden, she stopped and tried to draw back, on seeing Sir Robert was standing at the foot of the stairs. Above him, going slowly up, was Lady Sarah with her motor-coat over her arm, and her long veil, which she had untied, dragging on the stairs behind her. There was a sort of defiance in her slow tread, but Rhoda knew that, even if she had exchanged a few words with her husband, she had not had time for a conversation.
The baronet turned on hearing Rhoda, and called to her.
“Miss Pembury!”
Rhoda would fain not have heard, but he repeated her name, and she came reluctantly forward. She guessed that her very looks must be a sort of betrayal, for she was shaking from head to foot.
“You are not well,” he said kindly, but still with some sternness in his tone.
“Oh, yes, I am, thank you.”
He touched her hand.
“You are cold.”
“Yes. I’ve—I’ve been out in the grounds.”
“Come with me to the study. I want to speak to you.”
“Will you excuse me to-night, and speak to me in the morning?” pleaded she.
He shook his head.
“I won’t keep you long.”
He led the way, and she followed reluctantly enough. When they were both in the study, he pointed to a chair, and as she fell into it rather than sat down, he said:
“Don’t be afraid. I have very few questions to ask. I know without asking what has happened.”
Rhoda, greatly startled, uttered a sort of sob. He looked at her.
“I’ve grown more sharp-sighted of late,” he said gravely. “I can guess at some things now that I cannot see. I suppose you prevented Lady Sarah from running away?”
It seemed to Rhoda that his tone was stern rather than grateful. She hung her head and said nothing.
“What arguments did you use?”
Rhoda hesitated.
“You said you wouldn’t ask me questions,” whispered she.
“Well, well, there is no need. I am convinced that my wife was trying to leave her home, and that it was something you did or said that stopped her. But what is the use? You can’t mount guard over her for ever. Nor can I. If she has made up her mind to go, what can be done?”
Rhoda sat forward in her chair.
“She won’t try again,” said she hoarsely.
“What makes you think that?”
“I can only tell you this, that I have a weapon, and that I’ve used it.”
“What weapon?”
Rhoda replied cautiously:
“I have knowledge of something with which she had nothing to do, but which would seriously affect some one else.”
“Won’t you trust me with it?”
“No, Sir Robert.”
“You will make me think it does concern my wife, after all, if you won’t tell me what it is.”
But Rhoda was firm.
“Oh, no, you can take my word for that. It concerns Mr. Rotherfield, and it is something which he can’t afford to have known. But it concerns nobody but him. Now please let me go. I don’t want Lady Sarah to think that we are talking about her.”
Sir Robert sighed. The discovery of his wife’s intention to run away from her home seemed to Rhoda to have affected him very little. She had been prepared for a much stronger display of emotion when he heard the truth. But the fact was that Lady Sarah’s conduct had given him so much anxiety of late, and that, in particular, her over-excitement during the past few days had been so marked, that he could not feel much astonishment when he learned what the attempt was to which it had been leading. Nevertheless he was looking very grave, very sad, and very deeply humiliated as Rhoda briefly bade him good-night and went out.
She passed Lady Sarah’s door in fear and trembling, dreading that the lady would come out and upbraid her for “conspiring” with Sir Robert against her. But she reached her own room in safety, and without molestation.
Next morning Lady Sarah did not come down to breakfast, and the first anxious thought in Rhoda’s mind was that she had carried out her plan of elopement after all.
But before the morning was half over the mistress of the house glided into the morning-room, looking very cold, hard, and resentful, very hollow about the eyes and listless of manner, the mere wreck of the brilliant woman she had been within the past week.
She and Rhoda met with considerable reserve on both sides, as was inevitable. Gone was all kindness on Lady Sarah’s part; even her boy’s voice addressing her caused no relaxation of her features. She treated him as an interruption, and frowned as she crossed the room at his call. And Rhoda’s heart throbbed painfully when she remembered the touching way in which the beauty had spoken to the child on the previous night; when she had shown him a momentary tenderness which was real. It had only been the flicker of a love which absence would soon have extinguished altogether.
The boy looked chilled and disappointed. Remembering the sweetness of her look and touch on the previous night he had been ready with a smile for her, and her coldness pained him and struck him into silence.
There was a painful pause, as they all heard the sound of the steps of Sir Robert in the hall outside. But when he came in, they were all struck by the change in his manner. Instead of being slow and stately, he was brisk and alert. He did not smile as he bade them all good-morning, and even when he stooped to kiss his son, his face was stern and set.
He spoke with a most unusual tone of command as he turned to his wife and said:
“Sarah, I have settled some of the details of our journey abroad already. I want you to go to town with me to-day to buy anything you may want, and to help me as to any details which I may have forgotten.”
“I don’t want to go abroad,” she said sullenly.
These were the first words which the two had exchanged since Sir Robert had become aware of his wife’s attempt to run away from him. Rhoda held her breath as she listened, without daring to look up.
There was quite a new tone in Sir Robert’s voice, and instead of being all gentleness and kindness to his wife, consulting her convenience and yielding to her wishes, he was laying down the law as to his plans, and quite simply taking her adhesion for granted, just like an ordinary husband.
Her answer did not disconcert him in the least, neither did it appear to have any weight with him.
“I have decided for you this time,” he said quietly. “And all that is left for you to do is to fall in with my plans.”
Lady Sarah looked up. This was a change indeed.
“Where are you going?” she asked in the same sullen tone as before.
“To Paris first. Then on to Lyons, and Marseilles. I don’t think you know Marseilles?”
“No. I don’t wish to know it.”
“I’ve no doubt you will like it when you are there.”
“I prefer the Riviera.”
“You have been there so often. It will be better for you to have a thorough change.”
“I don’t want a change. You can go to Marseilles and I’ll go to Monte Carlo with my mother, as usual.”
Sir Robert looked at her with a new determination in his eyes.
“No. I’ve made my arrangements, and you must fall in with them. You have had your own way about your holiday for a good many winters; now you must give way to mine.”
Lady Sarah looked up with hard, mutinous eyes. But there was a look in those of her husband which she could not meet more than a few moments. With an impatient shrug of the shoulders she turned away and walked towards the door.
“The carriage will be round in five minutes,” said he. “Please get ready quickly, as we haven’t much time to catch the train.”
“I should advise you to go alone. I shall be a most dull companion to-day, I can assure you.”
“Well, it will be a very proper revenge on your part. For you have found me a dull companion very often, I believe.”
Rhoda could have sunk into the earth for shame and surprise at this unpleasant trial of strength between husband and wife, so utterly different from any scene she had ever witnessed between the two before.
Sir Robert held the door open for his wife to pass out, and she ran quickly upstairs. Rhoda wondered whether she would obey the command given her, and waited with a fast beating heart.
Little Caryl, who had been a silent observer, turned to her and beckoned.
“Why is papa so different? And mama too?” he asked under his breath.
And Rhoda could find no answer.
Within the five minutes accorded her Lady Sarah came downstairs hastily and not very carefully dressed, and looking as unlike as possible the brilliant, laughing creature who had been accustomed to impose her will upon all around her.
Like an automaton she went out of the house, got into the victoria, and took her seat in the corner, where she sat without a word to her husband, staring straight before her.
In the train she sat in the same way, burying herself in an illustrated paper, and replying as briefly as possible to his remarks.
But he maintained a perfectly equable demeanour, and it was impossible for her to draw from him a single word either of remonstrance or of impatience.
When they reached town Sir Robert took her straight to a restaurant, and asked her what she would like for luncheon.
“I don’t care,” she answered coldly. “I don’t want any luncheon.”
“You will leave me to order it then?” said Sir Robert coolly.
“Oh, yes. Pray don’t consult me. I prefer being a cipher.”
“Certainly,” acquiesced Sir Robert without even a look at her.
And he proceeded to order luncheon for both, taking care to choose such dishes as she preferred.
Lady Sarah had an excellent appetite, and she was hungry. But even a dainty and well chosen repast failed to soften her ill-humour.
“And now,” said Sir Robert when they had finished luncheon, “we will go shopping. What shops shall we visit first?”
Lady Sarah laughed.
“Surely you need not consult me. You appear to have made up your mind what I am to buy.”
“Very well. If you will leave it to me, I dare say we shall get on very well.”
He ordered a taxi, and they drove to one of the best furriers in town. Lady Sarah was passionately fond of furs, and was, he knew, anxious to have a sable cloak for the winter. He asked to have such a garment shown to him, and two magnificent cloaks, either of which might have adorned a princess, were brought and offered to him for inspection.
He turned to his wife.
“Is either of these the sort of thing you had in your mind?”
Ill-tempered as she was, Lady Sarah could scarcely resist the beautiful furs held out before her.
“Perhaps madam would like to try them on, and see which cloak became her the best.” For one moment Lady Sarah hesitated, then her ill-temper got the better of her taste again.
“It is not necessary,” she said. “They are both very handsome. It is for my husband to choose which he likes best.”
“Try them both on,” said Sir Robert, without appearing to note the coldness of her tone, which, while it could not be detected by the saleswoman, was quite evident to himself, knowing her moods as he did.
Lady Sarah took off the long coat of purple faced cloth which she was wearing, and obediently put on first one and then the other mantle. Both were beautiful, but the one was much better adapted to her slender little figure than the other.
But when Sir Robert asked her which of the two she would have, she persisted in her exaggerated humility and listlessness, and said it was for him to decide.
Without showing the least impatience, Sir Robert decided for her upon the right mantle, paid the eight hundred pounds which was the price of it, and had it put into the taxi-cab. There was no change in Lady Sarah’s expression as she left the shop and heard her husband give the address of a fashionable milliner.
“Am I to get out?” she asked when the taxi stopped at the door.
Quite unmoved, Sir Robert said:
“I think so.”
And they entered the shop together.
If there was one place in this world in which Lady Sarah was happier than in another, it was a hat-shop. But in spite of the temptation of the latest creations around her, she contrived triumphantly to carry out of the shop, as she carried it in, her air of listless indifference to everything around her. She submitted to have one hat tried on after another, an occupation in which she usually delighted.
Whether they suited her ill or well, not a sign of interest did she give, and she allowed her husband to choose her headgear for her as he had chosen the mantle.
Nothing daunted by her malice, Sir Robert took her to the best boot-shop in London, and finally to a jeweller’s, where he chose a beautiful pendant of diamonds, pearls and emeralds, her favourite combination of gems.
Lady Sarah preserved the same stolidity, the same indifference throughout, and when they took their places in the train to return to Dourville, she did not even take the trouble to pick up one of her parcels when it fell on the floor.
It was a trial of strength between them; Sir Robert, on his side, still hoped against hope that his generosity would conquer her gratitude in the end, and that she would appreciate the nobility of his revenge upon a wife who had been caught in the act of attempting to desert him. Lady Sarah, on her side, determined to show him that she was not to be bought over by his kindness, fought sullenly for the maintenance of her stolid ill-temper, and succeeded so far, but failed in her amiable wish to excite her husband to ill-humour or to reproach.
When they reached the Mill-house, they got out of the carriage, which had been sent to meet them, in just the same manner as they had got in that morning. Lady Sarah cold, listless, languid, almost plain in her ill-humour; Sir Robert calm, firm, unruffled as ever.
She did not even turn to speak about the parcels which were in the carriage. As a rule she was too much excited about any new purchase even to allow the servants to bring it in for her. Seizing it with both hands, she would run to the nearest sympathiser of her own sex, Minnie, or Rhoda, or even Mrs. Hawkes, to show her new possession with the glee of a child.
Now she marched into the house as if such frivolities were altogether beneath her.
She went upstairs to dress for dinner, and came down looking rather more contented than she had done all day.
Sir Robert flattered himself that she had at last broken down under the influence of the sable cloak or the handsome pendant. But he noted, with a slight uneasiness, that in proportion as she was more satisfied, the faces of Rhoda and Minnie were graver and more disturbed.
“Well, Sarah, have you shown the girls your pretty things?” asked Sir Robert as they all took their seats at the table.
Rhoda and Minnie looked at each other uncomfortably. The baronet glanced from one to the other, and then turned to his wife, upon whose face there was a most disagreeable look of gratified malice.
“Oh, yes, they’ve seen the things,” she said coolly. “As I don’t want another cloak, I offered it to Minnie, but she thought it was too old for her; and I offered Miss Pembury the pendant, as I hate pendants myself and I thought she might like it. But she didn’t care to accept it either. So I sent the cloak and the pendant, and the hats up to the Priory, in case Aileen or Philippa may like them.”
There was a long silence. Sir Robert went on eating his soup without gratifying her malice by so much as a look. The other two ladies followed his example, with scalding tears in their eyes. They all waited for the explosion which, they all felt sure, must come at last, after such a shocking exhibition of ingratitude and insolence on the part of his unworthy wife.
But, while all had their eyes cast down, Sir Robert’s voice, grave, quiet, apparently wholly unaffected by what had passed, broke the awkward silence.
“And Miss Pembury,” he said, “I have some news that will interest you, I think. I saw, in a shop in Piccadilly, the companion print to my ‘Farmer’s Daughter.’ ”
Rhoda and Minnie looked up, smiling and admiring his courage.
Lady Sarah was defeated. Her lip trembled, and she had the grace to look ashamed of herself, as she began nervously to play with her bread.
Itwas a relief to them all when Sir Robert made an excuse of urgent letters to write and bid the ladies good-night immediately after dinner, but on the other hand, Minnie and Rhoda felt very uncomfortable at the prospect of spending the evening in the society of Lady Sarah.
As it turned out, however, things went off better than they had expected. No sooner was Lady Sarah out of her husband’s sight than her spirits returned, and she had the effrontery to say to Rhoda, in a low voice, when Minnie was at the other end of the drawing-room:
“You see how useless it is for you good people to make plots and plans for bad ones like me, don’t you?”
Rhoda could not restrain her indignation:
“It is shocking, Lady Sarah, that you should treat your husband so, for no fault but his being too forgiving.”
Lady Sarah looked frankly and boldly into her eyes.
“Forgiving! What has he to forgive?” she asked, as if in all innocence.
Rhoda was so much astonished at this retort that it was some moments before she could reply. When she had collected her thoughts, she said straightforwardly:
“You tried to run away. And he has forgiven that.”
“Well, it was his wish that I should stay, wasn’t it? Then he is right to be glad. It is I who am sorry, for I wanted to go.”
The coolness with which she spoke frightened Rhoda for a moment. But then the absurdity of the situation suddenly struck her, after her realisation of its tragedy, and she could scarcely help laughing.
“It’s of no use to argue with you, Lady Sarah,” she said with a sigh.
“Not the least in the world. You see, too, that I’m in the right. Sir Robert, for what reason I don’t know, wants to keep me here against my will, wants to travel with me, when he knows he’ll hate it as much as I shall. Well, he has succeeded in getting his own way, and I haven’t got mine. Why am I expected to be grateful then? It is he who ought to be grateful. But it is silly of him to show his gratitude by insisting upon buying me a lot of things I don’t want.”
Rhoda said no more, and Lady Sarah, thankful at any rate to be freed from the society of her husband, condescended to be very charming for the rest of the evening.
But there was now a new feature in her conduct which filled every one with dismay. She was civil to every one, lively and bright with Minnie and even with Rhoda, but towards Sir Robert she now maintained a demeanour of cold reserve which was disconcerting in the extreme.
It was in vain that he tried every means in his power to please her, consulted her about their travelling arrangements, asked her whether she wanted money. Even that last inducement to break down her sullen resentment failed.
She shrugged her shoulders, and without looking up, told him that, after the fuss he had made about giving her money, she had resolved not to trouble him for more than her allowance in future.
Sir Robert, greatly distressed by this new attitude, had recourse, much against his will, to his wife’s parents for help in the emergency.
The Marquis was unsympathetic. He was of opinion that every man should know how to manage his own wife, and that his son-in-law had better not carry his domestic troubles outside his own door.
But Lady Eridge, who perhaps understood, better than did the Marquis, the wayward and difficult temper of their child, was greatly distressed, and did not dare to confess what Lady Sarah had told her since the frustrated elopement, news of which she had herself brought to her mother.
Lady Sarah had told her mother frankly that she hated her husband, that she would never get on any better with him than she was now doing, and that, if he were to insist upon taking her away with him to Egypt, she would throw herself into the sea on the way out.
How was Lady Eridge to tell her son-in-law this? Knowing as she did, that some of the blame for the ill-assorted marriage lay on her shoulders, she was desperately anxious to make the best of things, and the advice she at length gave Sir Robert was that he should give up the idea of Egypt, and let Lady Sarah go to the Riviera as usual without him.
“She will be with me,” urged the Marchioness. “And you can trust me to look after her.”
“But will you be able to prevent her seeing Jack Rotherfield?”
“Would it even be wise to do so?” urged Lady Eridge.
“What! After the other night!”
“Yes. I don’t think she would ever have agreed to run away but for the discovery about the picture. Of course that was shocking, inexcusable, horrible. But I think it was more out of revenge upon you for thwarting her that she acted than from any real wish to rob you, and it’s a great pity she was driven to bay over it.”
“There was no help for it,” said Sir Robert.
“Well, I suppose not. But, as I say, it was a pity. She is a very difficult person to manage, and of course it puts a great humiliation upon her.”
“To be found out? Yes, of course. However, I can’t consent to her going to the Riviera, unless, indeed, she cares to let me accompany her. My object in coming to you to-day was to find out whether you can persuade her to behave reasonably. She must not travel again without me, of that I am determined. But I should wish to leave it to you to settle with her whether she would rather spend the winter here in Dourville or abroad. In any case she has to put up with the infliction of my presence.”
Lady Eridge sighed.
“Robert, I am very sorry for you,” she said. “I don’t quite know what to advise. But if I were you, I would shorten the period of keeping Jack away as much as possible. I don’t believe there would have been any harm done but for that strong action of yours in forbidding her to speak to him. Of course that made her resentful at once.”
Sir Robert, however, looked dubious.
“I thought, as you do, that there was no harm in their flirtation,” he said, “and, as you know, I have given her every indulgence. But when she prefers to run away from her home to refraining from compromising correspondence, what is one to think?”
“Think anything but the worst, and you will be right. She is fond of Jack, in her superficial way, but I don’t think it is fondness for him, so much as resentment against you, that made her want to run away.”
“But, in Heaven’s name what has she got to resent?”
“Nothing. But she always was unreasonable, and she will be to the end. Robert, take my advice. Let her go away with me, and I’ll undertake to look after her.”
“I must think it over,” said the baronet stiffly, as he rose to go.
Hurt as he was by his wife’s hard and unnatural conduct, and by the barrier she set up between them, he was determined to make one last effort that night to bring her to a more reasonable frame of mind. He was conscious that he had been guilty of no one fault in his conduct towards her except in the weakness which had caused him to be over-indulgent to her caprices.
Deep as his love for her had been, founded on admiration which had never grown weaker, the manner in which she had treated him of late had affected his own feeling for her strongly. He had known and made allowance for the difference between their temperaments, but he had always believed, in spite of her caprices and her neglect of her domestic duties, that what heart she had was sound. Now, however, he was faced with doubts which it was impossible to dispel, and it was without so much indulgence in his heart as usual that he prepared for a final battle with her.
If she were to persist in refusing to treat him with any appearance of ordinary civility, he would put it to her that some settlement would have to be arrived at to make life for either of them possible.
He feared that she would welcome the prospect, but he hoped that an appeal to her feelings might result in softening her.
In the meantime Rhoda was undergoing a painful ordeal. It was now a week since the night of the frustrated elopement, and things were going on in the same uncomfortable manner as ever at the Mill-house.
Rhoda gave most of her time to Caryl, and saw as little of either Sir Robert or Lady Sarah as could be helped, in order that nothing in her conduct might give the wife an excuse for saying that she stood between her and her husband.
Rhoda, who always did her own shopping in the evening when Caryl was in bed, was returning at dusk to the house when a man in a motor-coat came quickly across the road towards her.
She would have hurried on, for she recognised Jack Rotherfield, but he was determined to speak to her, and she had to submit. She quailed under the look of intense mistrust and dislike which shot out of his handsome dark eyes as he spoke to her.
“Miss Pembury,” he said in a low voice, “I want to speak to you. You have been poisoning people’s minds against me, and I have a right to be heard.”
Rhoda was indignant. His manner was threatening and his tone almost abusive. And yet this was the man who had murdered Langton, who had deceived his old friend and guardian, and who had done his best to rob him of his wife.
“I will hear whatever you have to say, Mr. Rotherfield,” said she.
He walked beside her, and went on in the same offended tone:
“What is it you have said against me?”
She stopped. It was now so dark that, in the side road into which they had turned, they could stand and talk without much fear of being remarked upon by passers-by.
“I have said nothing against you.”
“You used a threat. You told Lady Sarah that you would tell Sir Robert something about me unless she gave up her intention of coming outside the gate to speak to me.”
Rhoda was silent. She was frightened by Jack Rotherfield’s manner, and would have avoided this interview had she been able to do so. But as he insisted, she thought she had better hear all that he had to say, once for all. Perhaps, also, she might be able to say something to him which would induce him to fall in with Sir Robert’s wishes.
“Well,” he said. “What was it you had to tell Sir Robert?”
She hesitated only a moment longer, and then replied boldly:
“You know what it was.”
“I swear I haven’t the least idea.”
She turned quickly as if to make her escape.
But he stopped her, laying his hand lightly on her arm.
“Don’t go yet, please. I must know what it is you intend to tell Sir Robert about me.”
She hesitated. Then, perhaps, in the hope that he might, after all, be able to clear himself of the worst part of the guilt which she believed to weigh upon him, she said:
“I know that it was you who killed the butler, Langton.”
He stood firm and did not flinch.
“Indeed! And how do you know it?”
“I saw you come out of the drawing-room and go upstairs.”
“Where were you?”
“In the hall, in the corner by the tall clock.”
For a moment he was silent. She stole a glance at him, and was chilled by the look upon his face. If she had until that moment believed him incapable of murder, she would have altered her opinion after seeing that look.
“And you are kind enough to take it for granted, because you imagine you saw me go upstairs, that it was I who killed the man?”
“Well, it is for others to say that. All I should say is what I saw and what I know.”
“And that is next to nothing. If you had seen me strike the man you might have had something to tell. As it is——”
“As it is, I know that you were in the drawing-room with him; I heard you; and I know you went upstairs afterwards, because I saw you. If nothing happened while you were in the drawing-room, why have you never confessed that you were there?”
He hesitated and then spoke quickly:
“I’ll tell you all about it, and you shall judge whether I could speak. I was in love with Lady Sarah, as you know, of course. I was rash enough, foolish enough, to leave the Mill-house, where I was staying with Sir Robert, who was then my guardian, and to go to the Priory, late at night, to see her for a few minutes, she inside and I outside the library window. Langton, the butler, knew of this; he had caught me at it before. He lay in wait for me, and when I let myself in by the drawing-room window, which I had left unfastened, I found him inside. He insulted me; I was hot-tempered then, and I knocked him down. I didn’t mean to hurt him seriously, of course. That’s the truth.”
“It’s not all the truth,” said Rhoda. “His hand was cut—and so was yours. You must have used a knife.”
“He struck at me with one, and I had to defend myself,” said Jack.
“Why didn’t you tell the whole story, if you had no intention of killing him?”
“How could I? I should have had to drag Lady Sarah’s name into the business, and Sir Robert would not have married her. There was no harm in our littletête-à-têtes, but still it would not have done to own to them. Now would it?”
“I suppose not,” said Rhoda slowly. “But it was shocking that you should have begun so soon to deceive Sir Robert. It was dreadful, terrible.”
“Do you think it would serve any useful purpose to let him know all the truth now?”
“It may be necessary,” said Rhoda boldly.
“And you really mean to do it?”
“I would only do it if Lady Sarah were to deceive her husband again.”
Jack’s face grew dark with rage; she saw his features twitching.
“What good would it do?”
“An investigation would be made, and justice would be done.”
He knew what she meant. She was trembling as she spoke, but she was determined that he should know that upon his good behaviour depended his own safety. If he would keep away from the house, and refrain from communicating with Lady Sarah, she would keep silence. If he failed to do so, then she would denounce him, and he would have to stand his trial.
He understood the position perfectly; she saw this, and that there was no need to “rub it in.” For a few moments he stood quietly considering the matter, and then he seemed to pull himself together, and suddenly bent forward to speak in a low voice:
“You think you are acting for the best, I’ve no doubt,” said he. “But you are forging a chain which will hold Sir Robert as well as his wife prisoner for the rest of his life.”
“No, no,” said Rhoda.
She had got away. But he followed her.
“And look here,” said he, as he bent down with a sudden burst of passion. “You are acting, not from good motives, but from bad ones. You want to boss the show at the Mill-house. But you won’t. You have done the worst thing you could for everybody, and you mustn’t expect to escape punishment. If you betray me—us, you’ll repent it.”
“Very well,” said Rhoda. “That’s my affair.”
“You won’t be warned?”
She would not answer him. Breaking away, she ran out into the high road, where he did not dare to follow her, and returned with rapid steps to the Mill-house.
She got back in time to dress hurriedly for dinner, and scrambled down, very pale and nervous, just as the rest were seated.
Lady Sarah looked curiously at her from time to time across the table, and Rhoda, anxious to escape an interview, ran upstairs as soon as dinner was over.
Ten minutes later, the report of a firearm, and then the agonised shriek of a woman, rang through the house.
Sir Robert rushed from his study into the hall, where he met a frightened housekeeper on the stairs.
“What was that noise?” asked he quickly. “And where did it come from?”
Mrs. Hawkes replied in a trembling voice, as she hurried upstairs,
“It sounds like a shot, sir, and it comes from Miss Pembury’s room.”
Scarcelyhad the housekeeper given this answer to her master’s inquiry, when a loud knocking at the front door, and the long tinkling of the electric bell, announced that some one was there, some one, as they all guessed, who was acquainted with what had happened.
There was something so startling in this thundering at the door at the very moment when they were on their way upstairs towards the room which they imagined to be the scene of a tragedy, that both Sir Robert and Mrs. Hawkes stopped and turned upon the staircase.
“Who’s that?” hissed the housekeeper.
A man-servant had run to the door, but Sir Robert turned once more and pointed imperiously upwards.
“Go on, go on, or let me pass,” he said.
And then, as if the knocking at the door had been only the result of their own imaginations, excited by their fears, they both hurried on up the stairs.
Swiftly there passed through the minds of both a succession of terrible thoughts, born of the events of the past month. The housekeeper was as well aware as her master and mistress themselves that there was acute tension between them, and in all the anxiety and suspense which the whole household had endured since the thefts from the gallery had become known and whispered about, the chief hope of everybody that some sort of satisfactory way out of the family difficulties might be found, centred on Rhoda Pembury.
With her quiet manners, her attachment to the invalid boy, her evident efforts to preserve the peace between husband and wife, the girl had endeared herself to the lower members of the household as well as to Caryl, and Mrs. Hawkes in particular had persisted in believing that she would end by finding means to bring the ill-assorted couple together.
But now the housekeeper was filled with fear that the peace-maker had been the victim of a fresh tragedy.
She was even vaguely suspicious as to the hand by which such a tragedy as she feared might have been brought about. It was inevitable that some inkling of the truth about the death of poor Langton should have trickled through to the servants’ hall during those ten years which had elapsed since the death of the butler, that gossip should have fixed upon Jack Rotherfield as the possible holder of the clue to that old mystery.
Now, therefore, it was not surprising that Mrs. Hawkes should ask herself whether Jack Rotherfield, who had already the guilt of one outrage at his door, might not have committed another. If Rhoda Pembury had been murdered because she stood between Lady Sarah and her husband’s rival, who but that rival could have been guilty of the act?
So thought Mrs. Hawkes as she hurried along the corridor to the door of Rhoda’s room.
Bursting it open without knocking, so sure was she that the sounds she had heard proceeded from this room, the housekeeper found herself in darkness. The electric light had not been turned on. The window was open, the curtains were drawn back, and a little light came from the moon, not long risen.
For a moment Mrs. Hawkes saw nothing. Then, her eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom, she perceived that there was something on the floor close by the window, something that did not move, did not utter a sound.
She moved forward quickly, and knelt down on the floor. Then a shudder went through her, and she sat back with a low cry.
Once more bending down, she raised the inert mass from the floor, turned the limp head, stared down into the ghastly face.
For a moment sight and sense seemed to fail her, and then she was roused by sounds of voices and footsteps outside the door.
Scrambling quickly to her feet, the housekeeper hurried across the floor, just as a loud knock sounded on the door of the room.
She heard the rattling of the handle and quickly turned the key in the lock at the sound of master’s voice.
“Mrs. Hawkes, can I speak to you? Can you come out?”
She tried to recover her natural voice, as she answered quickly:
“In one moment, Sir Robert. Will you send for a doctor at once?”
“A doctor!” The voice was that of Jack Rotherfield.
“What has happened?” This was in Sir Robert’s voice.
There was a pause, during which Mrs. Hawkes heard other voices in a confused buzz.
“There has been an accident. A bad accident, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, yes. An accident. But I was the cause of it. I did it. Oh, God, let me come in, let me in.”
These words were uttered in the strong voice of Jack Rotherfield, and at the same moment there came a terrific lunge against the door, which he was trying to break open.
The stern voice of Sir Robert, remonstrating, had the desired effect of making the young man desist, and then the housekeeper heard her master giving orders to one of the men-servants to go at once for a doctor.
In the meantime Mrs. Hawkes had hurriedly recrossed the floor to the window, and made one more examination of the body of the woman lying in a heap on the rug under the window.
Then the voice of Jack Rotherfield sounded loud and clear above all the others outside.
“She’s dead, I know she’s dead.”
“Hush!”
It was Minnie who was trying to silence him, but the young man still ejaculated, in a tone of passionate remorse and horror,
“I know she’s dead. I know it. It was I killed her.”
“What!”
Sir Robert hissed out the word, in horror and dismay.
Jack Rotherfield went on, in a deathlike silence which made every word ring out:
“I meant only to frighten her. It was an accident. I fired a revolver into the air, as I thought, but the bullet struck her as she leaned out of the window.”
There were sounds of sobbing and suppressed screaming, and in the midst of it Sir Robert knocked again at the door.
“You had better let me come in.”
The housekeeper turned the key in the lock, and opened the door.
At the same moment a figure came flying along the corridor from Caryl’s room, and Rhoda Pembury, pale and alarmed, joined the little group of three persons: Sir Robert, Jack Rotherfield, and Mrs. Hawkes.
“What is it? What has happened?” cried the girl. “What is all the noise?”
Sir Robert fell back, reeling.
“Thank God!” he said hoarsely, under his breath, as he looked at her.
She stared at him, trembling, then at Jack Rotherfield, who was striving to get past Mrs. Hawkes; and at the housekeeper, who held him fast by the arm.
The housekeeper suddenly relaxed her hold of Jack and beckoned to Rhoda.
“Come in with me,” she said.
Rhoda staggered back.
“What is it? In my room?” stammered she.
The housekeeper nodded.
“Lady Sarah,” she whispered. “She is—” And with her lips she formed the word “dead.”
Both Sir Robert and Rhoda understood, and in silence they both entered the room, where Mrs. Hawkes turned up the light.
There, under the window, in her light satin dress, with the jewels round her neck and on her hands, the flowers still pinned to her bodice, her beautiful dark hair disordered by her fall, lay Lady Sarah, inert, lifeless.
A little dark stain on her satin bodice showed where the blood had oozed through from the wound in her breast.
Jack Rotherfield burst into the group and threw himself on the ground beside the dead woman. Unprincipled as he was, guilty as he was, not one of the three persons present could fail to be moved by the anguish in his face. Solemn as the moment was, and deeply as they were all impressed by the swiftness of the unexpected and as yet imperfectly understood tragedy, not one of those three, Sir Robert, Rhoda, or Mrs. Hawkes, showed half the despair which convulsed the features of the young man.
He was mad with grief. He babbled out words to which they would all fain have shut their ears; he took the lifeless hands and pressed them within his own, staring down at the dead face, calling to her, now loudly, now softly, in a way which wrung all their hearts.
The group broke up on the arrival of the doctor, and only Mrs. Hawkes and Sir Robert remained in the room while he made his brief examination.
There had never been the least doubt about the result of it. Lady Sarah had been shot through the heart, and must have died instantaneously.
Jack Rotherfield made no secret of the fact that he had been the cause of her death, but it soon leaked out that, while he declared that he had accidentally shot the lady, while intending only to attract her attention and to frighten her, he had believed, as he did so, that the woman he was frightening was Rhoda Pembury.
It was Lady Sarah’s scream which had acquainted him with the fact that the bullet had struck the wrong woman.
His explanations, rambling and confused, deceived no one. All his hearers knew that he must have been on the watch for Rhoda’s appearance at the window of her room, where it was often her habit to sit looking out at the water that ran through the grounds. The room being unlighted, the moment he saw a woman’s figure at the window, Jack had jumped to the conclusion that it was that of Rhoda Pembury, and he had shot her, by his own account accidentally, but none the less effectually.
He was suffered to leave the house without molestation, and indeed it was necessary to suggest his withdrawal, so anxious was he to remain in the vicinity of the dead woman to whom, it could not be doubted, he had been deeply attached.
It was the doctor who got rid of him, and who then turned his attention to Rhoda, upon whom the tragic event, which she understood better than any one, had had an overwhelming effect.
For a short time she lay prostrate, absolutely overcome by the knowledge that it was in mistake for herself that Jack Rotherfield had shot Lady Sarah. Rhoda remembered the glances which the unfortunate lady had thrown repeatedly in her direction during dinner, and did not doubt that Lady Sarah had gone to the room of her boy’s companion in order to speak to her privately. There seated or standing at the window, in the half darkness, she had been mistaken by Jack Rotherfield for Rhoda, and, although his statement was to the effect that his intention had only been to attract her attention or to frighten her—for he had given both explanations—Rhoda was quite sure that he had intended to shoot her, in revenge for what she had done in keeping him apart from Lady Sarah, or to prevent any indiscretions on her part in the shape of revelations concerning the death of Langton.
Suddenly Rhoda raised herself from the couch in Lady Sarah’s boudoir where she had been placed.
“Caryl!” she whispered.
Mrs. Hawkes, having superintended the carrying of the body of poor Lady Sarah into her own bedroom, had left Sir Robert alone with the dead lady and had given her attention to Rhoda.
Rhoda had caught the faint sound of the boy’s voice, through the open doors. He was calling for her.
“I must go to him.” She struggled to her feet, and turning unsteadily, said: “Mrs. Hawkes, will you send word to the Priory of what has happened? And ask whether Lady Eridge will come? She will have to take Caryl away.”
“Yes. Quite right. I hadn’t thought of it.”
Rhoda went slowly to the boy’s room and found him crying in his little bed. His nurse was with him, doing her best to soothe him, but rumours of the tragedy which had killed his mother had already reached his ears, and he would not be comforted without his friend.
“Rhoda, Rhoda,” cried he, as she came in, looking very white, “Is it true? Is mama dead?”
“Oh, they shouldn’t have told you!”
“But I guessed.” She was beside him by this time, and his arm was round her neck. “You remember that evening when she was kind, and kissed me, and cried? I knew that meant something was going to happen, and I’ve wondered and wondered what it was. Now I know.”
Rhoda wiped away her own tears. He drew her head down to his level.
“Poor mama. I’m sorry. She was so pretty!” There was a pause, while Rhoda acquiesced, sobbing. Then he said quickly: “But you will stay with me, won’t you?”
Rhoda did not know what to say.
“Your grandmama will want to take care of you, Caryl, I think,” she said. “She will be very, very kind, and so will your aunts, I’m sure.”
“Yes, they’re all kind, but I wantyou. Will you promise to stay with me?”
“I can’t promise anything yet. You must wait, and be sure we will take good care of you, Caryl,” said the girl, who could scarcely speak.
The wrench of the tragedy had been great: that of parting with Caryl would, she felt, be greater still. Yet how was it to be avoided?
Within half an hour the marchioness arrived with Lady Aileen; and both, after a long and distressing interview with Sir Robert, came with him into Caryl’s room.
At once Rhoda noticed, with deep distress, that there was a difference in his manner to herself.
Instead of being merely sad and grave, Sir Robert, when he turned towards her, was distant, formal, stern and cold. She was cut to the heart, and understood that he looked upon her as in part the cause of the death of his wife.
True though this was, in a sense, yet as Rhoda was wholly innocent in the matter, she felt that it was an injustice that she should be treated in this manner.
In the circumstances, it was, of course, impossible either to explain or to accuse. She could only submit, and suffer.
Before many minutes were over, however, she had something to think about which distracted her thoughts, for the time, from Sir Robert and his unkindness.
Lady Eridge, deeply distressed as she was at her daughter’s sudden and tragic death, seemed to feel something not unlike a sense of relief that her troubles on behalf of the erratic and self-willed Lady Sarah were at an end.
“What are you going to do, Miss Pembury?” she asked in a low voice, as she bent over the boy.
“She is going to stay with me,” cried Caryl, as he joined his hands together round Rhoda’s neck, and clinging to her, refused to relax his hold.
Lady Eridge looked at her.
“You can’t stay here, of course?”
“Of course not. I am going away at once,” said Rhoda.
The boy burst into loud sobs.
The marchioness bent down to whisper in her ear.
“I’m going to take him to the Priory, to-night, out of the way of everything. His father will not mind, I’m sure.”
“No. That will be the best thing possible.”