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At the door, she was received by the proprietress, a stately lady in black satin, wearing a double row of large jet beads, who reminded her instantly of all Lord Ingleby's maiden aunts. She seemed an accentuated, dignified, concentrated embodiment of them all; and Myra longed for Billy, to share the joke. "Aunt Ingleby" requested Mrs. O'Mara to walk in, and hoped she had had a pleasant journey.
She moved forward, and tried to take his hand. "Don't touch me!" he said, sharply. Then: "You, Myra? You! Lord Ingleby's widow?" The furious misery of his voice stung Myra. Why should he resent the noble name she bore, the high rank which was hers? Even if it placed her socially far above him, had she not just expressed her readiness her longing to resign all, for him?
He walked on, until his rapid stride brought him to the centre of the cliff above Horseshoe Cove. Then "Good Lord!" said Jim Airth, and stood still. He had caught sight of Lady Ingleby's white skirt reposing on the sand, beyond the scarlet parasol. "Good Lord!" said Jim Airth. Then he scanned the horizon. Not a boat to be seen. His quick eye travelled along the cliff, the way he had come.
He had very few lapses into his seven-year-old mood, even with the duchess; and when someone chaffingly asked him whether he was practising the correct deportment of a soon-to-be-married man, "Yes," said Garth quietly, "I am." "Will she be at Shenstone?" inquired Ronald; for several of the duchess's party were due at Lady Ingleby's for the following week-end. "Yes," said Garth, "she will."
Jane smiled at the thought of how Garth would throw back his head and shout, if she told him of this conversation. Lady Ingleby's musical remarks always amused her friends. They passed the village church on the green, ivy-clad, picturesque, and, half a minute later, swerved in at the park gates. Myra saw Jane glance at the gate-post they had just shaved, and laughed.
"Then lots of people knew before I did?" said Lady Ingleby. The doctor did not answer. She rose, and stood looking down into the fire; her tall graceful figure drawn up to its full height, her back to the doctor, whose watchful eyes never left her for an instant. Suddenly she looked across to Lord Ingleby's chair. "And I believe Peter knew," she said, in a loud, high-pitched voice. "Good heavens!
"By Ingleby's own confession, he had come to Barbadoes knowing of his father's death and of my succession to the estates with the settled purpose of plundering and injuring me. My rash confidence put such an opportunity into his hands as he could never have hoped for. He had waited to possess himself of the letter which my mother wrote to Mr.
Dalmain walking slowly beneath the trees, in earnest conversation with a very tall man, who carried his hat, letting the breeze blow through his thick rumpled hair. Both were too preoccupied to notice the motor, but as the man turned his haggard face toward his companion, the doctor saw in it the same stony look of hopeless despair, which had grieved and baffled him in Lady Ingleby's.
Then, turning in his revolving-chair, he looked steadily at Billy. "Cathcart," he said, quietly, "what reason have you for being so certain of Lord Ingleby's death, and that this telegram is therefore a forgery?" Billy moistened his lips. "Oh, confound it!" he said. "I picked up the pieces!" "I see," said Sir Deryck; and looked away. "I have never told a soul," said Billy.
As he stepped back into Lady Ingleby's room, closing the door between, he saw Jane Dalmain kneel down beside the bed, and gather the weeping form into her arms, with a gesture of immense protective tenderness. "Oh Jane," sobbed Lady Ingleby, as she hid her face in the sweet comfort of that generous bosom; "Oh Jane! Michael has been killed! And little Peter died, because Michael was dead.
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