“I must go after them; I must—I must follow them! Oh, Dolff, where are you—where are you?” cried Mrs. Harwood. She was wild with excitement and alarm, her face alternately flushed and paled, her form trembling with endeavor to move, to push herself forward, to follow those dreadful emissaries of the law whose heavy steps were very audible, now on the stairs, now overhead.
The other members of the party were in strange contrast to her anxiety. Meredith lay back in his chair rubbing his hands moved apparently by the supremest sense of the ludi{248}crous, unable to see it in any but a ridiculous light. Gussy leaned on the back of his chair, smiling in sympathy with him, yet a little pale and wondering, beginning to realize that something disagreeable, painful, might be going on, though it did not mean fatigue or excitement to her patient. Julia, finally roused from her book, had got up bewildered, and stood asking what was the matter, getting no reply from anyone.
The door of the drawing-room had been left open, and across the hall, at the opposite door of what was now Meredith’s room, stood the nurse in her white cap and apron, with a wondering face, looking out.
“I thought I knew a great deal about the folly of the authorities,” said Meredith, “and of Scotland Yard in particular, but this is the climax. By-the-bye, I see an opportunity for a great sensation, which, if I were at the Old Bailey, would make my fortune. ‘The prisoner, accused of a murderous assault upon Mr. Meredith, was defended by that gentleman in person.’ What a situation for the press—one might add, ‘who is a family connection,’ eh, Gussy?” he said, putting up his hand to take hers, which was upon the back of his chair.
“Oh, Charley! but speak to mamma. Mamma is miserable. Everything about Dolff makes her so anxious.”
“Even such an excellent joke?” said Meredith: but he did not say anything to comfort Mrs. Harwood.
In the midst of his laugh a sudden gravity came over him. He looked at her again with a quick, scrutinizing glance. Dolff was not all. She had been bewildered—taken by surprise, but was not really anxious about her son. Now, however, as she sat listening, waiting, her suspense became unbearable. A woman imprisoned in her chair never moving, unable to walk a step, she looked as if at any moment she might dart out of it and fling herself after the invaders. Her hands moved uneasily upon the arms of her chair, plucking at them as if to raise herself. The light in her eyes was a wild glare of desperation. The color fluttered on her face, now ebbing away and leaving her ghastly, now coming back with a sudden flush. He remembered suddenly all that might be involved in a search of that house, and that for anything he knew a secret which it was of the utmost importance he should fathom now lay, as it were, within reach of his hand. He became serious all at once, the laugh passing suddenly from his face. He got up but not to stop the examination, as Gussy hoped. He did not even stop to soothe Mrs. Harwood, but strolled out into the hall on his unsteady limbs, forgetting them all.
“I must go after them,” Mrs. Harwood cried again, half{249} raising herself in her chair. “I must go after them. Gussy, they may go—how can we tell where they may go?”
“No, mamma, there is nothing to be alarmed about. Vicars will see to that.”
“How can we tell where Vicars is? I have been afraid of something of the kind all my life. Gussy, I must go myself. I must go myself!”
“Oh, hush, mamma,” said Gussy; she was not alarmed about a risk which had never frightened her at all. Mrs. Harwood was always nervous; but Gussy, who had been used to it for years, had never believed that anything would happen. So long as Charley did not throw himself back—was not over-excited. This was what Gussy most feared.
“I’ll take you wherever you like, mamma,” said Julia, coming with a rush to the back of the chair, and projecting her mother into the hall with a force which nearly shook her out of it. Mrs. Harwood’s precipitate progress was arrested by Meredith, who called out to Julia to go softly, and caught at the arm of the chair as it swung past.
“Are you coming too, to keep an eye on them?” he said.
“I don’t like,” said Mrs. Harwood, trying to subdue the trembling of her lips, “to have such people all over my house.”
“Oh, they are honest enough; there will be no picking or stealing. As for the thing itself, it’s a farce. I daresay Dolff has gone out. And, if not, what does it matter? If there is any such ridiculous idea about, you had better meet it and be done with it. It’s a wonder they don’t arrest me for knocking down myself.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Harwood faintly, “I am not afraid for Dolff.”
“You can have nothing else to be afraid of,” said Meredith, in his careless tones. “A search by the police is nothing unless there happens to be something for them to find out. Nothing is of any importance unless it is true. They may search till they are tired, but, so long as there is nobody in hiding, what can it matter? Don’t trouble yourself about nothing. Let me take you back to your comfortable fireside.”
“No, no,” said Mrs. Harwood, more and more troubled; “I will stay here.”
He had not, it was evident, found the way to save her, with all his philosophy.
“No?” said Meredith, interrogatively. “It’s rather cold here, however, after the cosiness of the drawing-room. I hope you’ll not catch cold. If it is any satisfaction to you, of course, there’s nothing to be said: but I should think you might let me look out for these fellows and send them off. Julia{250} and me,” he added, with a wave of his hand to Julia, and the smile which was so exasperating.
He kept wondering all the time where Janet was—Janet, who had disappeared without attracting any notice, and who probably, he thought, had helped to smuggle Dolff away somewhere, uselessly—because when such an accusation was once made, it was much better to brave it out. It was like the folly of a woman to try to smuggle him away, when the only thing was to brave it out.
“This is the only place where there is no draught,” he said, pushing Mrs. Harwood’s chair directly in front of the door which led to the wing—the door, which, on the night of the ball, he and Janet had miraculously found unfastened.
The door, he remarked once more, had every appearance of being a door built up and impracticable. To say, in a carefully-kept house like this, that it was covered with dust would not have been true, but there was an air about it as if it had been covered with dust. Meredith smiled at himself while he made this reflection. His heart was singularly buoyant and free, full of excitement, yet of pleasurable excitement. He was on the eve of finding out something he wanted to find out, and he was most particularly concerned that the circumstances which favored him should overwhelm Mrs. Harwood. He placed her almost exactly in front of the door as if she had intended to veil it, and drew over one of the hall chairs beside her and threw himself down upon it.
“This is the most sheltered spot,” he said, “out of reach of the door and several other draughts. If you will stay out in the hall and catch cold, Mrs. Harwood, you are safest here.”
She glanced at the door as he drew her up to it with a repressed shudder. She had become deadly pale, and in the faint light looked as if she had suddenly............