There were no stars and no moon, for the sky was filled with wild black clouds flying before the wind. Lexy could not guess at the time. She had no idea where she was, but it didn’t matter. The morning would come some time, and the road would lead somewhere.
“It’s better here,” she said to herself. “I’d far, far rather be here, wherever it is, than shut up in that room with the thoughts I had!”
Those thoughts, those fears, had utterly gone from her now, but the memory of them was horrible. She shuddered at the memory of the hours she had spent locked in her room, with that monstrous dread of madness in her heart. Thank God, it had passed now! She walked along the interminable empty road, her old self again, but graver and sterner than she had ever been before in her life.
“I’ve got to understand all this,” she said to herself. “I’ve got to know what’s been the matter with me. That breakdown at the Queltons’, that awful time yesterday afternoon, and this! I suppose I’ve been walking in my sleep. I never did before. Something’s gone wrong with my nerves, terribly wrong; and I’ve got to find out why.”
She quickened her pace a little, because a trace of the old panic fear had stirred in her.
“It’s over!” she thought. “I’ll never imagine such a thing again; but I wonder if I’ll ever feel quite sure of myself again!”
For all her valiant efforts, tears came into her eyes. She had always been so proudly and honestly sure of herself, she had always trusted herself, and now—now she knew how weak, how untrustworthy she could be. Now she would always have that knowledge, and would fear that the weakness might come again.
“I don’t know whether I really did see Caroline. I can’t feel certain of anything. Perhaps I ought to give up all this and go away and rest; only I’ve no place to go. There isn’t any one I can tell.”
She straightened her shoulders and looked up at the vast, dark sky, where black clouds ran before a wind that snapped at their heels like a wolf; and the sight assuaged her. This world that lay under the open sky—the woods, the hills, and above all, the sea—was her world. It belonged to her equally with all God’s creatures. She had her part in it and her place. There was no one to whom she could turn for comfort, her faith in herself was cruelly shaken, and yet somehow she was not forsaken and helpless. Some one was coming. It was dark, but the light was coming!
She went on, her brisk footsteps ringing out clearly in the silence. The road was bordered on both sides by woods, where the leaves whispered, and there was no sign anywhere of another human being; but the road must lead somewhere. It began to go steeply uphill, and she became aware for the first time that she was very tired and very hungry, and that one of her shoes was worn through; but she had her precious money in the bag around her neck, and, if she kept on going, she couldn’t help reaching some place where she could get food and rest.
“At the top of the hill I’ll be able to see better,” she thought.
It was a long, long hill, and the stones began to hurt her foot in the worn shoe; but she got to the top, and then below her she saw the lights of a railway station.
She went down the hill at a lively trot, and it was as if she had come into a different world. Dogs barked somewhere not far off, and she passed a barn standing black against the sky. It was a human world, where people lived.
When she reached the platform, the door of the waiting room was locked, but inside she could see a light burning dimly in the ticket booth, and a clock. Half past one!
With a sigh of relief, she sat down on the edge of the platform. She wouldn’t in the least mind sitting here until morning, in a place where there were lights and a clock, and she could hear a dog barking. She took off her shoe and rubbed her bruised foot, and sighed again with great content. In four hours or so somebody would come, and then she would find out where she was, and how to get back to Mrs. Royce, and Mrs. Royce’s comfortable breakfast—coffee, ham and eggs, and hot muffins.
She started up, and hastily put on her shoe again, for in the distance she heard the sound of a motor. She told herself that it would be the height of folly to stop an unknown car in this solitary place, for there were evil men abroad in the world; but there were a great many more honest ones, and if she could only get back to Mrs. Royce’s now!
She crossed the road and stood behind a big tree. The purr of the motor was growing louder and louder, filling the whole earth. Her heart beat fast, she kept her eyes upon the road, excited, but not sure what she meant to do.
It was a taxi. She sprang out into the road and waved her arms.
“Taxi!” she shouted joyously.
The car stopped with a jolt, and the driver jumped out.
“Now, then! What’s up?” he demanded suspiciously. From a safe distance, the light of an electric torch was flashed in her face. “Well, I’ll be gosh-darned!” said he. “Ain’t you the boarder up to Mrs. Royce’s?”
“Yes! I am! I am!” cried Lexy, overwhelmed with delight. “Can you take me there?”
“I can,” he replied; “but what on earth are you doing out here?”
“I got lost,” said Lexy. “Where is this, anyhow?”
“Wyngate station,” said he. “I’ll be gosh-darned! I never! Lost?”
“Yes,” said Lexy. “Aren’t you the driver who took me up the day I came here?”
“That’s me—only taxi in Wyngate. Took you out to the Queltons’, too. Hop in, miss!”
His engine had stalled, and he set to work to crank it, while Lexy stood beside him.
“Drive awfully fast, will you?” she asked.
He was too busy to answer for a moment. Then, when his engine was running again, he straightened up and looked at her.
“No, ma’am!” he said firmly. “No more of that for me! Not after what happened a while ago. No, ma’am! I had my lesson!”
“An accident?” inquired Lexy politely.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I s’pose it was; but the more I think it over, the more I dunno!”
In the brightness cast by the headlights, Lexy could see his face very well, and the look on it gave her a strange little thrill of fear. It was not a handsome or intelligent face, but it was a very honest one, and she saw, written plain upon it, a very honest doubt and dismay. Like herself, he wasn’t sure.
“It was this way,” he went on. “About three miles up Carterstown way there’s a bad piece of road. There’s a steep hill, and a crossroad cuts across the foot of it, and it’s too narrer for two cars to pass. It’s a bad piece, and I always been keerful there. I was keerful that night. I was coming along the crossroad, and I heard another car somewhere, and I sounded the horn two or three times before I come to the foot of the hill. Jest as I got there, and was turning up the hill, down comes another car, full tilt. I couldn’t git out o’ the way. There’s stone walls on both sides. I tried to back, but he crashed into me. I kind of fainted, I guess. My cab was all smashed up, and I was cut pretty bad with glass. They found me lying there about an hour after. The other fellow—he was killed.” He stopped for a minute. “If it hadn’t been fer his license number, nobody could ’a’ known who he was, he was so smashed up. Seems he was from New York, driving a taxi belonging to one of them big companies.”
“Poor fellow!” said Lexy.
“Yes,” said the other solemnly. “I kin say that, too, whatever he meant to do.”
“Meant to do?”
The countryman came a step nearer.
“I keep thinking about it,” he said in a half whisper. “This is the queer thing about it, miss. That there car didn’t start till I got to the foot of the hill! The engine was just racing, and the car wasn’t moving along—I know that. It was as if he’d been waiting up there for me, and then down he came as if he meant”—the speaker paused again—“to kill me,” he ended.
“But—” Lexy began, and then stopped.
She had a very odd feeling that this story was somehow of great importance to her, but that she must put it away, that she must keep it in her mind until later. This wasn’t the time to think about it.
“Joe,” she said, “I want to hear more about this—all about it; but not now. I’m too tired.”
He gave himself a shake, like a dog. Then he turned to her with a slow, good-natured smile.
“I guess you are!” he said. “Lucky for you I just happened to be late to-night, taking them Ainsly girls ’way out to their house after a dance. Hop in, miss!”
Lexy got in, and they set off. She leaned back and closed her eyes, but they flew open again as if of their own accord. There was something she wanted to see. Through the glass she could see Joe’s burly shoulders, a little hunched—Joe, who, like herself, wasn’t sure.
“Not now!” said something inside her. “Don’t think about that now. Try not to think at all. Wait! Something is going to happen.”
At the corner of the road leading to Mrs. Royce’s, she tapped on the window. Joe stopped the cab with a jerk, sprang down from his seat, and ran around to open the door.
“What’s the matter, miss?”
“Nothing,” said Lexy. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Joe. I thought I’d get out here and slip into the house quietly, without disturbing any one.”
Joe grinned sheepishly.
“I’ve got kind of jumpy since—that,” he said. “Howsomever, come on, miss!”
“Oh, I don’t mean to trouble you!”
“I’m going to see you safe inside that there house!” Joe declared firmly.
Grateful for his genuine kindness, Lexy made no further protest. Side by side they walked down the lane, their footsteps noiseless in the thick dust, and Joe opened the garden gate without a sound.
“I thought perhaps I could climb up that tree and get in at my window,” Lexy whispered.
“I’ll do it for you,” said Joe, “and come down and let you in by the back door.”
He was up the tree like a cat. He went cautiously along a branch, until he could reach the roof of the shed with his toes. He dropped down on the roof, and Lexy saw him disappear into her room. She went to the back door. In a minute she heard the key turn inside, and the door opened.
“Thank you ever so much, Joe!” she whispered.
But he paid no attention to her. He stood still, drawing deep breaths of the night air.
“Them roses!” he said. “The smell of ’em made me kind of sick, like. Throw ’em out, miss! Don’t go to sleep with them roses in the room!”
Lexy did not answer for a time.
“I’ll see you to-morrow, Joe,” she said. “I’ll pay you for the taxi, and have a talk with you. And thank you, Joe, ever so much!”
He touched his cap, murmured “Good night,” and off he went.
Lexy went in, locked the kitchen door behind her, and stood there, leaning against it, half dazed by the great light that was coming into her mind. She was beginning to understand! The roses—the roses with their strange and powerful fragrance! Her hysterical outburst after her tea at Dr. Quelton’s house! She was beginning to understand, not the details, but the one tremendous thing that mattered.
“He did it,” she said to herself. “He made all this happen. I didn’t just break down. I haven’t been weak and hysterical. He made it all happen!”
For a time her relief was an ecstasy. She could trust herself again. She was so happy in that knowledge that she could have shouted aloud, to waken Mrs. Royce and Captain Grey, and tell them. The monstrous burden was lifted, she was free, she was her old sturdy, trustworthy self again.
She sank into a chair by the kitchen table, staring before her into the dark, her lips parted in a smile of gratitude and delight; and then, suddenly, the smile fled. She rose to her feet, her hands clenched, her whole body rigid.
“He did it!” she said again. “It’s the vilest and most horrible thing anyone can do. He tried to steal my soul. He turned me into that poor, terrified, contemptible creature. I’ll never in all my life forgive him. I’m going to find out—about that, and about Caroline. I’ll never give up trying, and I’ll never forgive him!”
She groped her way through the dark kitchen and into the hall. That was where she had first seen Dr. Quelton. She stopped and turned, as if she were looking into his face.
“I’m stronger than you!” she whispered.