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"Bradley misled me," he observed coolly. "There's no one here in whom I'm interested." For a moment his eyes accusing, utterly scornful met and held Cara's. Then he looked across at Brett. "I understood you were alone, Forrester. I regret my intrusion." With a curt bow he was gone. As the door closed behind him Cara sank down mutely into her chair. She gazed wearily in front of her.
God, let him come in time!... Brett! Brett! Brett!..." The retreating wave revealed once more the slight girl-figure, spent and effortless this time, tossing impotently in the churning backwash. Forrester would be too late! A third wave would batter the life out of that fragile body. Cara's voice died into a strangled sob of despair.
She and Ann had been gathering roses together in the Priory garden, and, in straining up to reach a particularly lovely bloom that hung from the roof of the pergola, Cara's thin muslin sleeve had caught on a projecting nail which had ripped it apart from shoulder to elbow.
It required, comparatively, little beyond the weight of a feather to give preponderance to the scale of evil influences. Cara's reception, as shown in the last chapter, was no worse than he had anticipated, yet it hurt him none the less; for unkind words from her were always felt as blows, and coldness as the pressure upon his heart of an icy hand.
The two men parted, and Ellis kept on his way homeward. Not until the suggestion of Jerome that his wife might be disinclined to hear him read, did a remembrance of Cara's uncertain temper throw a shade across his feelings. He sighed as he moved onward. "I wish she were kinder and more considerate," he said to himself.
"She is sick, but has fallen asleep!" thought Miss Mary. "Perhaps that horror, which I thought seized the child in the empty drawing-rooms, was an invention of her mind? Surely it was nothing more; she is simply ill; perhaps, not very ill, since she fell asleep so quickly." The small night-lamp shone in Cara's room like a blue spark.
The wearied Miss Mary, in a long dressing-gown, ready to spring from her bed any moment, slept for a short time and then woke with a feeling of great fear. She was roused by a sharp cold by a breath of frosty air coming in through the open door. She sprang up and ran, with a cry, to Cara's chamber.
These were the questions over which Ellis pondered. And the difficulty loomed up larger and larger the nearer he approached it. He felt too serious; and was conscious of this. Unhappily, Cara's brow was somewhat clouded. Ellis approached her with attempts at cheerful conversation; but she was not in the mood to feel interested in any of the topics he introduced.
He had not gone many yards before he heard the twitter of voices and smothered laughter behind him. He turned; it was Cara and the child, a girl of six or seven. Cara's face was rosy, possibly from her bath, and possibly from some shame-faced consciousness. He slackened his pace, and as they ranged beside him said, "Good-morning!"
Cara's a dear, good soul, as you know; but she's a self-willed little jade, and if I don't do just as she wants me to if I don't walk her chalk line presto! she goes off like a rocket. To-night, d'ye see, I came home with the first volume of Prescott's new work on Mexico a perfect romance of a book, and wanted to read it aloud to Cara.
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