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"Has anything happened since yesterday to increase their distrust of me?" he asked. "Yes." "What is it?" "You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours and of his?" "Yes. To Major Fitz-David." "My uncle has written to Major Fitz-David." "Why?" He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike his natural tone that his voice sounded quite strange to me.
"Thank you, Major, for your kind reception and your pretty compliment," I said, matching my host's easy tone as closely as the necessary restraints on my side would permit. "You have made your confession. May I make mine?" Major Fitz-David lifted my hand again from my lap and drew his chair as close as possible to mine. I looked at him gravely and tried to release my hand.
In the face of the facts I had a blind belief in the influence of his old friend, if his old friend could only be prevailed upon to support my view. "Wait for me one moment," I said. "I want you to hear another opinion besides mine." I left him, and returned to the study. Major Fitz-David was not there. I knocked at the door of communication with the front room.
The brief respite was soon over; all my anxieties came back. I was once more a doubting, discontented, depressed creature when I rose to say good-by. "Promise, my dear, you will do nothing rash," said Benjamin, as he opened the door for me. "Is it rash to go to Major Fitz-David?" I asked. "Yes if you go by yourself. You don't know what sort of man he is; you don't know how he may receive you.
On my way to the ladder I passed one of the tables, and saw the keys lying on it which Major Fitz-David had left at my disposal. The smaller of the two keys instantly reminded me of the cupboards under the bookcase. I had strangely overlooked these. A vague distrust of the locked doors a vague doubt of what they might be hiding from me, stole into my mind.
How did you pick up with the Major? I never heard him speak of you before to-day." Under all the surface selfishness and coarseness of this strange girl there was a certain frankness and freedom which pleaded in her favor to my mind, at any rate. I answered frankly and freely on my side. "Major Fitz-David is an old friend of my husband's," I said, "and he is kind to me for my husband's sake.
Major Fitz-David groaned, and sought a momentary consolation in his friend Benjamin's claret. "That dreadful subject again!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Benjamin, why does she persist in dwelling on that dreadful subject?" "I must dwell on what is now the one employment and the one hope of my life," I said.
"Only for a moment," I said. "You remind me," pursued Major Fitz-David, shaking his head sadly, "of another charming friend of mine a French friend Madame Mirliflore. You are a person of prodigious tenacity of purpose. Madame Mirliflore is a person of prodigious tenacity of purpose. She happens to be in London. Shall we have her at our little dinner?"
"You are his old friend," I said. "Open his letter, Major, and read it for me." Major Fitz-David opened the letter and read it through to himself. When he had done he threw it on the table with a gesture which was almost a gesture of contempt. "There is but one excuse for him," he said. "The man is mad." Those words told me all. I knew the worst; and, knowing it, I could read the letter.
He led me to the table, and filled my plate and my glass with the air of a man who considered himself to be engaged in one of the most important occupations of his life. Benjamin kept the conversation going in the interval. "Major Fitz-David brings you some news, my dear," he said. "Your mother-in-law, Mrs. Macallan, is coming here to see you to-day." My mother-in-law coming to see me!
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