Lexy came down to breakfast a little late the next morning, but in the best of spirits, and with a ferocious appetite. She had no idea how or when she had left the house the night before, but obviously neither Mrs. Royce nor Captain Grey knew anything about it, and that sufficed. She could go on eating, quite untroubled by their friendly anxiety. Let them think what they chose—it no longer mattered to her.
For, in spite of the warm liking she had for them both, she felt entirely cut off from them now. If she told them the truth, they would not believe her, they would not and could not help her. Nobody on earth would help her. She faced that fact squarely. Whatever Dr. Quelton had meant to accomplish, he had perfectly succeeded in doing one thing—he had discredited her. Anything she said now would be regarded as the irresponsible statement of a hysterical girl.
Very well! She had done with talking. She meant to act now.
“It was awfully nice of your sister to send me those roses,” she observed.
Captain Grey was standing by the window in the dining room, keeping her company while she ate. He turned his head aside as she spoke, but not before she had noticed on his sensitive face the odd and touching look that always came over it at any mention of his sister. Evidently he worshiped her, and yet Lexy was certain that he was somehow disappointed in her.
“She likes you very much,” he said.
“I’m glad,” said Lexy; “but how did you manage to keep the roses so wonderfully fresh, Captain Grey?”
“The doctor wrapped them for me—some rather special way, you know—damp paper, and then a cloth. He told me not to open them until I gave them to you. Very clever chap, isn’t he?”
“He is!” agreed Lexy, with a faint smile.
“Mind if I smoke, Miss Moran?” asked the young man. “Thanks!”
He lit a cigarette and sat down on the window sill. He was silent, and so was Lexy, for she fancied that he had something he wished to say.
“Miss Moran,” he said, at last, “you’ll go there again to see her, won’t you?”
Lexy considered for a moment.
“Why?” she asked. “Why did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I was afraid you might think—it’s the atmosphere of the place—I’m sure of it—that made you nervous the other afternoon. It’s something about the place, you know. I’ve felt it myself. I was afraid you wouldn’t care to go again, and I don’t like to think of her there—alone.”
“She’s not alone,” observed Lexy blandly. “She has her clever husband.”
“Yes, I know that, of course, but he’s—well, he’s not very cheery,” said the young man earnestly.
Lexy couldn’t help laughing.
“No, he’s not very cheery,” she admitted. “Of course I’ll go again—this afternoon, if you’d like.”
“I say! You are good!” he cried. “I know jolly well that you don’t want to go.”
“I do, though,” declared Lexy.
“Shall we walk over?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Lexy, “I’ll go by myself. There’s something I want to attend to first. I’ll meet you there at four o’clock.”
“Right-o!” said he. “Then you won’t mind if I go there for lunch?”
She assured him that she wouldn’t.
“You poor dear thing!” she added, to herself. His solicitude touched her. He seemed to feel himself responsible for her, as if she were a very delicate and rather weak-minded child. “You’re not very cheery, either!” she thought. And indeed he was not. His meeting with his sister had upset him badly. Ever since he had first seen her, he had been troubled and anxious and downcast. “And that’s because she’s not human,” thought Lexy. “She’s beautiful, and gentle, and all that, but she’s like a ghost. Of course it bothers him!”
She did not give much more thought to Captain Grey, however. As soon as he left the house, she went upstairs into the little sewing room, and until lunch time she was busy writing the clearest and briefest account she could of what had occurred. This she put into an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Charles Houseman and laid it on her bureau.
“If anything happened, I suppose they’d give it to him,” she said to herself. “I’d like him to know.”
Somehow this gave her a good deal of comfort. Not that she expected anything to happen, or was at all frightened, but she did not deny that Dr. Quelton was a singularly unpleasant sort of enemy to have; and he was her enemy—she was sure of it.
Just because he had made such a point of her arriving after four o’clock, she had made up her mind to reach the house well before that hour—which would not please him. Directly after lunch she walked down to the village. She found Joe taking a nap in his cab, outside the station; and, regardless of the frightful curiosity of the villagers, she stood there talking to him for a long time. He assured her, with his sheepish grin, that he had told no one of his having met her the night before, and he willingly promised never to mention it to any one without her consent.
“I ain’t so much of a talker,” he said.
That was true, too. He was reluctant, to-day, to talk about his strange adventure with the cab on the hill; but Lexy made him answer her questions, and he wavered in no respect from his first version.
“There was an inquest, an’ all,” he said. “I’m darned glad it’s all over!”
“It isn’t!” thought Lexy. “Somehow it belongs with other things. It’s a piece of the puzzle. I can’t fit it in now, but I will some day!”
So she thanked Joe, and paid him for last night’s trip, though he made miserable and embarrassed efforts to stop her. Then she set off on her way.
It was four o’clock by her watch when she reached the garden gate. She stopped for a moment with her hand on the latch, and, in spite of herself, a little shiver ran through her. The battered old house in the tangled garden looked more menacing to-day, in the tranquil spring sunshine, than it had in the rain. It was utterly lonely and quiet. Lexy could hear nothing but the distant sound of the surf, which was like the beating of a tired heart.
Against the advice of Mrs. Enderby, almost against her own reason, she had come here to Wyngate, and to the house—and she had seen Caroline. The thing which was beyond reason had been right—so right that it frightened her; and now it bade her go on. It was like a voice telling her that her feet were set in the right path.
Lexy pushed open the gate and went in. The pleasant young parlor maid opened the door. She looked alarmed.
“I don’t know, miss,” she said. “Mrs. Quelton—I’ll go and ask the doctor.”
But from the hall Lexy had caught sight of Mrs. Quelton in the drawing-room alone, and, with an affable smile for the anxious parlor maid, she went in there.
“I’m afraid I’m awfully early—” she began, and then stopped short in amazement.
Mrs. Quelton did not welcome the visitor, did not smile or speak. She lay back in her chair and stared at Lexy with dilated eyes and parted lips. Her face was as white as paper, and strangely drawn.
“Are you ill?” cried Lexy, running toward her.
Mrs. Quelton only stared at her with those brilliant, dilated eyes. Lexy took the other woman’s hand, and it was as cold as ice, and utterly lifeless.
“Mrs. Quelton! Are you ill?” she asked again.
Somehow it added to her horror to see, as she bent over her, that the unfortunate woman’s face was ever so thickly covered with some curious sort of paint or powder. It made her seem like a grotesque and horrible marionette.
“She’s old!” thought Lexy. “She’s terribly, terribly old!”
She drew back her hand, for she could not touch that painted face. She didn’t fail in generous pity, but she could not overcome an instinctive repugnance. She turned around, intending to call the parlor maid, and there was Dr. Quelton striding down the long room with a glass in his hand. Without even glancing at Lexy, he stooped over his wife, raised her limp head on one arm, and put the glass to her lips. She drank the contents, and lay back again, with her eyes closed. Almost at once the color began to return to her ashen cheeks. Her arms quivered, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at him with a faint, dazed smile.
“You’re better now,” he said.
“Better!” she repeated. “But you were late! I needed it—I needed it!”
“Come, now!” he said indulgently. “The faintness has passed. Now you must go up to your room and rest a little before tea.”
She rose, and to Lexy’s surprise her movements showed no trace of weakness. Then, turning her head, she caught sight of the girl, and her face lighted with pleasure.
“Miss Moran!” she cried. “How very nice to—”
“Miss Moran will wait, I’m sure,” the doctor interrupted. “You must rest for half an hour, Muriel.”
Taking her by the arm, he led her down the room. In the doorway she looked back and smiled at her visitor; and if anything had been needed to steel Lexy’s heart against the doctor, that smile on his wife’s face would have done it—that poor, plaintive little smile.
Standing there by Mrs. Quelton’s empty chair, she waited for him to return, a cold and terrible anger rising in her. She heard his step in the hall, heavy and deliberate, and presently he reëntered the room and came toward her, his blank, dull eyes fixed upon nothing. She was quite certain that he wanted to put her out of his way, and that he had no scruple whatever as to methods; yet for all her youth and inexperience, her utter loneliness, she felt that she was a match for him.
“So you’ve come back to us, Miss Moran,” he said in his lifeless voice. “I was afraid you might not.”
“Oh, but why not?” Lexy inquired in a brisk and cheerful tone. “I like to come here!”
A curious thrill of exultation ran through her, for she saw on the doctor’s face the faintest shadow of a frown. He was perplexed! She baffled him, and he didn’t know whether she understood what had happened.
“It is a great pleasure to Mrs. Quelton and myself,” he said politely. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at her. “Perhaps,” he went on, “you would be kind enough to spend a week here with us some time? Although I’m afraid you might find it very dull.”
“Oh, no!” Lexy assured him. “I’d love to come—whenever it’s convenient for you.”
They were still looking directly into each other’s eyes.
“Suppose we say to-morrow?” suggested Dr. Quelton.
“Thank you!” said Lexy. “I’ll come to-morrow!”