IT was now early, very early in the morning after the return of Lord St. Amant to the Abbey. Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping house. Not dead cold, however, in his lordship\'s comfortable bedroom, for he had built up the fire, as he sat on and on, still fully dressed, reading, or trying to read—his bed exactly in the same state as when he had gone upstairs from the drawing-room about eleven.
It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had last stayed up all night, but though he had made a great effort to forget himself in those ever fresh, even if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it impossible to banish from his mind—even for a few moments—the awful thing which he knew would, in a sense, never leave his mind again.
For the tenth time he put his book down, marking the page with a tiny strip of green watered ribbon, on a low table by his side, and then, staring into the fire, his memory lingered—not over his talk with Sir Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinking that over—but over the incidents which had marked the evening before.
He had returned from London only just in time to dress for dinner, and so he had not seen his guests till just before a quarter-past eight. Then had followed an hour passed, outwardly at least, peacefully and pleasantly.
[Pg 344] But while he had been eating mechanically the food put before him, in very truth not knowing what it was, terrible thoughts had gone through his mind in a terrible sequence.
Once or twice he had caught, or thought he had caught, Oliver Tropenell\'s penetrating eyes fixed searchingly on his face, but he, the host, had avoided looking at his guest. Somehow he could neither look at Oliver, nor even think of Oliver—with Oliver and Laura there, the one sitting opposite to him, the other next him.
Laura? Laura, on Lord St. Amant\'s left, had looked lovely last night. She was wearing a white dress, almost bridal in its dead whiteness—a rather singular fact considering that she had till to-day worn unrelieved black. Looking back, her host could not get her out of his mind. To think that she, proud, reserved, Laura Pavely was to be the heroine of a frightful tragedy which would bring not only shame and disgrace on herself and on the man whom Lord St. Amant had every reason to suppose she now loved, but—what was of so very much more concern to him—on that man\'s mother.
Looking at Laura, seeing that strange, haunting Mona Lisa smile on her lovely face, it had seemed incredible that she should be the central figure of such a story. But how could she escape being the central figure, the heroine of the story, at any rate in the imagination of all those, one might almost count them by millions, rather than thousands, who in a few days or a few weeks would be as familiar with the name "Mrs. Pavely" as they once had been with the names of—of Mrs. Bravo and Mrs. Maybrick?
[Pg 345] Yes, Lord St. Amant, staring into the fire, told himself, that that three-quarters of an hour spent in his own dining-room had been the most painful time he had ever lived through in his long life. He felt as if every moment of it was indelibly stamped on his brain. And yet he had completely forgotten what the talk had been about! He supposed they had talked. Silence would have seemed so strange, so unnatural. Yet he could not remember a single thing which had been said.
But his vision of the three who had sat at table with him remained horribly clear.
Now he was haunted specially by Oliver. And then, after a while, Oliver left him, and he was haunted by his poor friend, soon to be his poor wife.
Mrs. Tropenell had been more silent than usual—so much he did remember. And he wondered uneasily if he had given her any cause for thinking, from his appearance or his manner, that there was anything wrong?
The thought of what was going to happen to Mrs. Tropenell on the day which was now to-morrow, became suddenly so intolerable to Lord St. Amant that he got up from his chair, and walked twice round the large, shadowed bedroom.
Then he sat down again, and groaned aloud.
It was as though a bridge had been thrown over the chasm of nearly forty years. His withered heart became vivified. Something of the passion which he had left for the high-spirited and innocent, yet ardent-natured, girl whom he had loved, and whom he had saved from herself, stirred within him. Secretly, voicelessly, he had always been very proud of what [Pg 346] he had, done—and left undone. It was the one good, nay, the one selfless, action of his long, agreeable, selfish life.
But he could not save her now! Some little shelter and protection he would be able to afford her, but what would it avail against the frightful cloud of shame and anguish which was about to envelop her?
He told himself suddenly what he had already told himself when with Sir Angus—namely, that he and Letty must be married at once. She would certainly acquiesce in any course which would benefit Oliver. Yes, Letty would think of nothing but her son, and, the world being what it is, Oliver would of course benefit by the fact that Lord St. Amant was his stepfather. It would add yet another touch of the unusual and the romantic to the story....
Once more his mind swung back to last evening. He and Oliver had stayed alone together some ten minutes after the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, and there had come over Lord St. Amant a wild, unreasoning impulse to unburden his heart. But of course he had checked, battened down resolutely, that foolish almost crazy impulse. As soon as Letty and Laura were safely gone tomorrow morning he must, of course, tackle the terrible task. And then he tried, as he had tried so often during the last twelve hours, to put himself in Oliver Tropenell\'s place.
He recalled the younger man\'s easy, assured manner, and what a real help, nay, more than help, he had been when the house was full of guests. More than one of their neighbours there had spoken warmly, with evident admiration, of Tropenell. "How well [Pg 347] he\'s turned out! He was thought to be such a queer chap as a boy."
A queer chap? Oliver was certainly that.
Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man whom his intellect, if not his heart, was compelled to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer.
What had been his and Laura\'s real attitude to one another during Godfrey Pavely\'s lifetime? Was Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she played with Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men—as a certain kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat sometimes plays with a mouse? He was still inclined to think not,—before yesterday he would certainly have said not. But one never can tell—with a woman....
And what was going to happen now? Oliver had always been a fighter—no doubt Oliver would be prepared to take the "sporting chance."
When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room last evening, Laura and Oliver had almost at once passed through into the smaller drawing-room. They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was quite natural that they should desire to be by themselves, rather than in the company of Oliver\'s mother and Laura\'s host; and Lord St. Amant, looking furtively at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful constriction of the heart as he had noted the wistful glance she had cast on the two younger people. It had been such a touching look—the look of the mother who gives up h............