“Then you’re not going to do anything?” asked Lexy.
“My dear Miss Moran, what in the world can I do?” returned Captain Grey, with a sort of despair.
They were sitting together on the veranda in the warm morning sunshine. They had had breakfast in the dining room, with the doctor—an excellent breakfast. The doctor had been at his best—courteous, affable, very attentive to his guests. Everything in his manner tended to reassure the young soldier.
Everything in the world seemed to tend in that direction, Lexy thought. A Sunday tranquillity lay over the country. Church bells were ringing somewhere in the far distance. The windows of the library stood open, and the parlor maid was visible in there, flitting about with broom and duster. Everything was peaceful and ordinary, and Captain Grey had come out on the veranda and attempted to begin a peaceful and ordinary conversation.
But Lexy had no intention of allowing him to enjoy such a thing. She felt pretty sure that her time in this house would not be long. She had caused Dr. Quelton an anxiety that he could not conceal. She had got in his way. She could not tell whether he had discovered her trick yet, but the effects were manifest; and if he didn’t know now, he would very soon, and then—
Captain Grey must carry on when she was gone.
“You’re properly satisfied—with everything?” she went on mercilessly. “You’re not allowed even to see your sister. No one can see her. You’re not allowed to call in another doctor.”
“Even if I’m not properly satisfied,” he answered, “what can I do? In her husband’s house, you know—I can’t make a row.”
“Why can’t you?”
He looked at her, startled and uneasy. Her question was ridiculous. Why couldn’t he make a row? Simply because he couldn’t; because he wasn’t that sort; because it wasn’t done; because almost anything was preferable to making a row.
“Of course, if you have a blind faith in Dr. Quelton—” she persisted.
“Well, I haven’t,” he admitted; “but—”
“Then let’s go upstairs and see her. The doctor has gone out.”
“But the nurse—”
“Put on your best commanding officer’s air,” said Lexy. “You can be awfully impressive when you like. If I were you, there’s nothing I’d stop at.”
“Yes, but look here—what can I say to Quelton when he hears about it?”
“Laugh it off,” said Lexy.
The idea of Captain Grey trying to laugh off anything made her grin from ear to ear.
“Not much of a joke, though, is it?” he said rather stiffly. “Suppose he hoofs us out of the house?”
“Oh, dear!” cried Lexy. “You’re not a bit resourceful! Let’s try it, anyhow. It’s horrible to think of her shut up like that. Perhaps she’s longing to see you.”
He rose.
“Right-o!” he said. “Let’s try it!”
Together they went up the stairs and down the hall of the other wing, opposite that in which Lexy’s room was. Captain Grey knocked on a door, and a quiet, middle-aged little nurse came out.
“I’ll just pop in to see how my sister’s getting on,” said the young man, and Lexy silently applauded his toploftical manner.
“I’m sorry,” said the little nurse, “but Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—”
“Er—yes, quite so!” he interrupted suavely. “I shan’t stop a minute.”
He came nearer, but the nurse drew back and stood with her back against the door.
“Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—” she repeated.
“No more of that, please!” he said with a frown. “I’m going to see Mrs. Quelton for a moment. Stand aside, please!”
He did not raise his voice, but the quality of it was oddly changed. Lexy felt a thrill of pleasure in its cool assurance and authority. Perhaps he objected very much to “making a row,” but what a glorious row he could make if he chose! If he would only once face Dr. Quelton like this!
“Stand aside, if you please!” he repeated, and the poor little nurse, very much flustered, did so.
“I’m afraid Dr. Quelton will be—” she began, but Captain Grey had already entered the room.
The nurse followed him, closing the door after her. Lexy opened it at once and went in after them. She caught a glimpse of the young man and the nurse vanishing through one of the long windows that led out to the balcony. For a moment she hesitated, looking about her at the big, dim room. The dark shades were pulled down, and not a trace of the spring’s brightness entered here.
Then she heard Captain Grey’s voice speaking.
“My dear, my dear!” he said. “Can I do anything in the world for you? My dear!”
There was no answer. Lexy crossed the room to the window and looked out. The balcony, too, was dim, with Venetian blinds drawn down on every side, and on a narrow cot lay Muriel Quelton. There was a bandage over her forehead and covering her hair, and under it her face had a mystic and terrible beauty. She was as white as a ghost, with great dark circles beneath her eyes; and she was so still—so utterly still—that Lexy was stricken with terror.
Captain Grey was sitting beside her in a low chair, holding one of her lifeless hands, and Lexy saw on his face such anguish as she had never looked upon before.
“My dear!” he said again.
Her weary eyes opened and looked up at him. Then the shadow of a smile crossed her face.
“Stay!” she whispered.
Lexy drew nearer. Tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to read the nurse’s face, but she could not.
“How is—she—getting on?” she asked, speaking very low.
“Lexy!” came a voice from the cot, almost inaudible. “Take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”
“But do you mean—I don’t understand!” cried Lexy.
“Hush, please!” said the nurse severely. “Mrs. Quelton is not to be excited.”
Lexy was silent for a moment. Then, just as she was about to speak, her quick ear caught a very unwelcome sound—the sound of a horse’s trot. She turned away and went back through the window into the room. Dr. Quelton was coming home. She couldn’t wait to find out what Muriel Quelton had meant. Once more she was compelled to do the best she could amid a fog of misunderstanding.
“Lexy—take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”
That was what she thought Mrs. Quelton had said, and she acted upon that premise. She crossed the room to the bureau, and opened the top drawer. In the dim light that filled the shuttered room she could not see very clearly; but, as far as she could ascertain, there was nothing in the drawer except some neatly folded silk stockings, a satin glove case, some little odds and ends of ribbons, and a pile of handkerchiefs. She looked into the glove case—nothing there but gloves. There was nothing hidden away among the stockings, nothing among the ribbons.
She heard the front door close and a step begin to mount the stairs, deliberate and heavy, in the quiet house. In haste she went at the pile of handkerchiefs. There were dozens of them, all of fine white linen, all with a “2” embroidered in one corner—very uninteresting handkerchiefs, Lexy thought; but halfway through the pile she came upon one that she had seen before.
It was so familiar to her that at first she was not startled or even surprised. It was a handkerchief that she had embroidered for Caroline Enderby.
She took it up and looked at it with a frown. Then she heard Dr. Quelton’s step in the hall outside. She tucked the handkerchief in her belt, and tried to close the drawer, but it stuck. Her heart was beating wildly, her knees felt weak. He would find her there, like a thief!
But the footsteps went on past the door. She waited for a moment, and then went noiselessly across to the door, opened it, looked up and down the empty corridor, and ran, like a hare, back to her own room.
Caroline’s handkerchief! Was that what Mrs. Quelton had meant her to find? Or had she discovered it by accident? Did it mean that Mrs. Quelton was at heart her ally? Or was this little square of linen all that was left of Caroline?
Lexy took it out of her belt and looked at it again, and her tears fell on it. Whatever else it might imply, it told her clearly enough that her friend had been there. Poor Caroline—the helpless little captive who had left her prison to be lost in the strange world outside—had come here, and she had brought with her the handkerchief that Lexy had embroidered for her. It had come now into Lexy’s hand, a mute and pitiful emissary, whose message she could not understand.
“What shall I do?” she thought. “Oh, what must I do? Perhaps it’s time for the police. Perhaps, if I show this to Captain Grey, he’ll believe me. There must be some one, somewhere, who’ll believe me and help me!”
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes?” she said.
“Open the door!” ordered Dr. Quelton’s voice.
“No!” Lexy promptly replied.
She put the handkerchief inside her blouse and stood facing the closed door, with her hands clenched. Now he knew! She heard him laugh quietly.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “It is better, perhaps, for us not to meet again. Even making every allowance for your hysterical, unbalanced mind, I find it difficult to excuse this latest manifestation which I have just this moment discovered. It was you, of course, who filled that bottle with water?”
She did not answer.
“Why you did it, I don’t know,” he went on, “and probably you don’t know yourself. It was the wanton mischief of an irresponsible child, but the consequences in this instance are serious—very serious. Mrs. Quelton will suffer for them. I doubt if she will recover. No, Miss Moran, you are too troublesome a guest. You had better go—at once!”
“All right!” said Lexy, in a defiant but trembling voice.
“At once!” he repeated. “I shall send your bag this afternoon.”