CHAPTER XXXIV

"No answer," Vansittart said to the boy. Then he turned, his face pale, his lips twitching, and saying, "Come in for a moment," he took Joan's hand and led her back indoors, through the hall into the morning-room, where they had but just been laughing over their breakfast like two happy children.

"I must catch the next train to town, dearest, my lawyer wants me on important business connected with the settlements," he said. "Yes! Really, that is all! Am I pale? I confess that the sight of a telegram always upsets me--I am not as stolid as I seem. And now, darling, I must be off at once, if I mean to catch the next train!"

He embraced her fondly, adjured her to be most careful of herself, suggested that she should keep to the grounds while he was away--he did not like her "wandering about the country alone"--and promising to return as soon as his legal business was over, he left her.

She stood at the door watching the dog-cart speed away through the park until it disappeared into the avenue of limes; then feeling as if her heart were a huge leaden weight within her breast, she went to her boudoir, a room Vansittart had had refurnished for her in white and pale blue, and where they had sat together since their arrival when they were not out of doors. It was one of those close, thundery summer days which encourage gloom; and as she flung aside her hat and gloves and sank hopelessly into a chair, she wondered how she would contrive to get through those hours before his return.

Evidently Vansittart had become not only all in all to her, but she hardly dared face life without him. A nervous terror seized upon her. She felt, as she looked fearfully round, as if mocking spirits were rejoicing to find her without his protecting presence. Faint, jeering laughter seemed in the air, or was it only a singing in her ears?

"If I don't fight this awful feeling, he will find me mad when he comes home!" she wildly thought. So she rang the bell, and asked for the housekeeper, who presently came in in a brand-new, rustling silk, a little fluttered. But she felt gratified by her mistress asking so sweetly to be "shown everything," and the hours before the luncheon bell rang were whiled away by an inspection of the mansion and its contents from offices to attics and lumber-rooms.

Then came luncheon in the big, pompous dining-room: luncheon alone, with strange-looking ancestors painted by Vandyck, Lely, and others, gazing grimly out upon the slim girl in the white frock sitting in solitary grandeur at the table, obsequious men-servants in solemn, silent attendance. After that ordeal she felt she could bear no more, and tying on her hat fled into the grounds.

Here the extraordinary stillness of everything under the dense canopy of slowly massing clouds oppressed her still more. She felt more and more eerie and distraught as she wandered, until she came to the river. Here there was movement, something like life again. A faint breeze stirred the wavelets as the flood rushed steadily seawards.

"I will get out a boat and have a row. That may make me feel less horrible!" she determined. She went to the boathouse, chose a skiff, and was soon rowing rapidly up stream. She had learnt to row as a child. The boat sped cleanly along, as she neatly, deftly, handled the sculls.

Her melancholy slightly dispelled by the exercise, she forgot how time was going--how far she had rowed out of bounds, when suddenly an arrow of lurid lightning went quivering down athwart the dense grey horizon, followed by a detonating roar of thunder.

"I am in for it, there's no doubt of that!" she told herself, almost with a smile. Rain, storm, thunder, lightning--what items they were in the balance against a conscience bearing a hideous load such as hers! As she turned and began to row steadily homewards, she realized her mental state almost with awe.

Another flash illumined the whole landscape with a yellowish-blue glare, then a clap of thunder followed almost instantaneously. Down came such a deluge of rain that for a minute she was blinded; she sat still, wondering whether the slight craft would fill and be sunk.

Then, remembering her beloved, she urged herself to make an effort and return home. Although the downpour beat steadily upon her, upon the boat and the water around, although little runnels trickled coldly down her neck, and her straw hat was already pulp, she went steadily on and on, until at last she was at the boat-house, and had moored the skiff under its friendly shelter.

The rain had given place to hail, so she thought better to wait awhile before walking home. She sat there, wringing the water from her skirts, and wondering what Vansittart would say if he knew her plight, until the clouds parted, watery sunbeams cast a sickly lemon tint upon the river and its banks, and a rainbow began to glow upon the slate-coloured clouds.

Then she stepped from the boat and started to walk across the park. Her clinging garments made locomotion difficult. "What a drowned rat I must look!" she told herself. "What will be the best way of getting to my room without being seen? I know! The side room window!"

"The side room" was a chamber leading from the hall, and conducting by a second door to the offices. It was used for humbler visitors, messengers who waited answers, dressmakers and the like. In the hot weather the window was generally open. "If they have shut it, I must go in by the usual way," she thought.

It was not shut. With a little spring she balanced herself on the sill, and slipped down upon the floor, to find that the room was not empty as she had expected. A slight person in deep mourning, who had been seated, rose and confronted her.

Joan stared at the white, stern, but beautiful face in sick dismay. This was the woman who had given her the flowers--the posy with the strange, awful threat written on the label, when she was about to enter the bridegroom's carriage as she left the church after her wedding.

"I see--you know me," said the girl. She spoke with icy composure. "I have come to speak to you of your danger."

The two looked into each other's eyes unflinchingly--Vera with a cold condemnatory stare; Joan with the apathy of abject despair.

"Come this way, please," she said. Her garments dripped slowly on the polished floor; she glanced at the drops with a curious wonder, then led the way along a passage, and held open a baize door. In another moment the two were shut into Joan's boudoir, and Joan waved the girl that her wretched, so-called husband had loved, towards a chair.

She shook her head, impatiently. "I meant to wait to see you until you were in the dock," she began. "Your whole doings are known, from the first letter you wrote to poor Victor, to the hour I saw you in Haythorn Street, coming out of the house after you had poisoned him and left him to die! I had meant to tell all I knew to the detectives, but they came after me. All is complete--you may be arrested at any moment. Then will come your trial, your condemnation--your hanging. I expect you have dreamt the rope was round your neck; at least, if you have any feeling left in you. Murderess that you are, you have ruined my life, you have killed my dearest love, who loved me, not you--and I was gloating over the idea of your being hanged by the neck till you were dead, when I dreamt of my Victor. I dreamt a shadow--his shadow--bent over me, and said those very words that I thought meant your doom, 'I will repay, saith the Lord!' I awoke, and knew that I was to come and warn you, that you may escape."

She stopped short, gazing curiously at Joan's drawn, ashen features, features like those of an expressionless corpse. Her eyes, too, were dull, wandering.

"Escape?" she said, stupidly. Then she dropped into a chair, feeling half dead, half paralyzed. The thunder rolled faintly in the distance. It seemed to her that she was still seated in the boat, rowing, rowing, and was dreaming this wretched misery.

"Yes, escape!" the other repeated, bitterly. "You must confess everything to your husband--mind! everything! Then, perhaps, as I, whom you have injured for life, have had mercy on you, he may! At all events, he may do something to save your neck. You have but a few hours' safety--"

She started and stopped short. The door was flung open, and Vansittart entered, briskly, eagerly. He looked from one to the other, then went up to Joan, and reverentially lifting her hand, kissed it.

"Who is this lady, dearest?" he asked, gazing steadfastly at Vera.