The doctor’s library had a charm of its own. It was a big room,
careless, a little shabby, but furnished in fastidious taste and with a
friendly sort of comfort. A great wood fire was blazing on the hearth,
and Dr. Quelton drew up an armchair before it for Lexy.
“There!” he said. “Now you’ll soon be warm and dry. Anna!”
“Yes, sir!” the parlor maid responded from the doorway.
“Please tell Mrs. Quelton that Miss Moran is here.”
“Yes, sir!” repeated the maid, and disappeared.
Lexy sat down. Captain Grey stood, facing her, leaning one elbow on the
mantelpiece. Dr. Quelton paced up and down, his hands clasped behind
him. He looked like a dignified middle-aged gentleman in his own home.
A door opened somewhere in the house, and for a moment Lexy heard the
homely and familiar sound of an egg-beater whirring and a cheerful Irish
voice inquiring about “them potaters.” It was surely a cheerful and
pleasant enough setting; but Lexy did not find it so.
“I saw Caroline!” she insisted to herself. “I don’t care what any one
says. I saw Caroline!”
A strange sensation of pain and dread oppressed her. What should she do?
Whom should she tell?
“Captain Grey,” she thought; “but not now. It’s no use now. Dr. Quelton
would deny it. I’ll have to wait until we get out of here; and then,
perhaps, it ’ll be too late. He knows I saw her. Something--something
horrible--may happen!”
A shiver ran through her.
“Miss Moran is nervous,” said the doctor, with solicitude.
“I’m not!” replied Lexy sharply.
“I hope it’s not a chill,” said Captain Grey.
“I should be inclined to think it nervousness,” said Dr. Quelton. “Our
landscape here is lonely and depressing, and Miss Moran has the artist’s
temperament, impressionable, high-strung.”
“Not I!” declared Lexy, in a tone that startled Captain Grey. “Lonely
places don’t bother me. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Oh!” said the doctor. “But here’s Mrs. Quelton. Muriel, this is Miss
Moran, the young writer of fiction.”
Mrs. Quelton was coming down the long room, a beautiful woman, dark and
delicate, with a sort of plaintive languor in her manner. She held out
her hand to Lexy.
“I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said. “George has told me so much about
you--the first American girl he’s known!”
She glanced at her brother with a little smile. Lexy glanced at him,
too; and she was surprised and very much touched by the look on his
face. He couldn’t even smile. His face was grave, pale, almost solemn,
and he was regarding his sister with something like reverence.
“Oh, poor fellow!” thought Lexy. “Poor lonely fellow! It’s such a
wonderful thing for him to find his sister--some one of his own. I only
hope she’s as nice as she looks.”
This thought caused her to turn toward her hostess again. She _was_
beautiful, and in a gentle and gracious fashion, and yet--
“I don’t know,” thought Lexy. “There’s something--she doesn’t look
ill--perhaps she’s just lackadaisical; but certainly she’s not simple
and easy to understand. She must know about Caroline Enderby. The thing
is, would she help me, or--”
Or would Mrs. Quelton also be her enemy? Lost in her own thought, Lexy
sat silent. She had, indeed, certain grave faults in social deportment.
The head mistress of the finishing school she had attended had often
said to her:
“Alexandra, it is absolutely inexcusable to give way to moods in the
company of other people!”
In theory Lexy admitted that this was true, but it made no difference.
If she didn’t feel inclined to talk, she didn’t talk. It was so this
afternoon. She merely answered when she was spoken to--which was not
often, for Dr. Quelton was asking his brother-in-law questions about
India, and Mrs. Quelton seemed no more desirous to talk than Lexy was.
What is more, Lexy felt certain that the doctor’s wife was not listening
to the talk between the two men, but, like herself, was thinking her own
thoughts.
The parlor maid wheeled the tea cart in, and Mrs. Quelton roused herself
to pour the tea and to make polite inquiries, in her plaintive tone, as
to what her guests wanted in the way of cream and sugar. The maid
vanished again, and Dr. Quelton passed about the cups and plates.
“It’s China tea,” he observed. “I import it myself. It has quite a
distinctive flavor, I think.”
Captain Grey praised it, and Lexy herself found it very agreeable. She
sipped it, staring into the fire, glad to be let alone. Behind her she
could hear Captain Grey talking about the Ceylon tea plantations. His
voice sounded so pathetic!
“Another cup, Miss Moran?” asked Mrs. Quelton.
“Yes, thank you,” answered Lexy, and the doctor brought it to her.
Poor Captain Grey and his precious, new-found sister! The sound of his
voice brought tears to her eyes.
“But this is idiotic!” she thought, annoyed and surprised.
Still the tears welled up. She gulped down the rest of her tea hastily,
hoping that it would steady her, but it did not help at all. Sobs rose
in her throat, and an immense and formless sorrow came over her.
“This has got to stop!” she thought, in alarm. “I can’t be such a
chump!”
She turned to Mrs. Quelton.
“Are you going to grow any--” she began, but her voice was so unsteady
that she had to stop for a moment. “Any flowers in--in your--g-garden?”
The question ended in a loud and unmistakable sob. They all turned to
look at her, startled and anxious.
She made a desperate effort to regain control of herself.
“S-snapdragon,” she said. “So--so p-pretty!”
Then, suddenly, all her defenses gave way. The teacup fell from her hand
and was shattered on the floor, and, burying her head in her arms, she
cried as she had never cried in her life.
Mrs. Quelton stood beside her, one hand resting on Lexy’s shoulder.
Captain Grey was bending over her, profoundly disturbed. She tried to
speak, but she could not.
“Miss Moran!” said Dr. Quelton solicitously. “Will you allow me to give
you a mild sedative?”
“No!” she gasped. “No--I want to go home!”
“I’ll telephone for the taxi,” suggested Captain Grey. “He wasn’t coming
back until half past five.”
“Unfortunately we have no telephone,” said the doctor; “but I’ll drive
Miss Moran home.”
“No! I want to walk.”
“Not in this rain,” the doctor protested, “and in your overwrought
condition.”
“I must!” She got up, the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I
must!” she said wildly. “Let me go! Please let me go!”
The doctor turned to Captain Grey. In the midst of her unutterable
misery and confusion, Lexy still heard and understood what he was
saying.
“In a case of hysteria--better to humor her--the exercise and the fresh
air may help her.”
The doctor’s wife helped Lexy with her hat and coat. She was very
gentle, very kind, and genuinely concerned for her unhappy little guest.
Lexy remembered afterward that Mrs. Quelton kissed her; but at the
moment nothing mattered except to get away, to get out of that house
into the fresh air.
Without one backward glance she set off at a furious pace, splashing
through the puddles, almost running. Captain Grey kept easily by her
side with his long, lithe stride. Now and then he spoke to her, but she
could not trust herself to answer just yet. The storm within her was
subsiding. From time to time a sob broke from her, but the tears had
stopped.
And now she was beginning to think.
Twilight had come early on this rainy day, and it was almost dark before
they reached the end of the lane. Lexy slackened her pace. Then, as they
came to the corner of the highway, she stopped and laid her hand on her
companion’s sleeve.
“Captain Grey!” she said.
He looked down at her, but it was too dark to see what expression there
was on her pale face. He was vastly relieved, however, by the steadiness
of her voice.
“Captain Grey!” she said again. “If I told you something--something very
important--would you believe me?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he answered hastily. “Of course, I would always
believe you; but I wish you wouldn’t try to talk about anything
important just now, you know. Let’s wait a bit, eh?”
Lexy smiled to herself in the dark--a smile of extraordinary bitterness.
He wouldn’t believe her if she told him about Caroline. He would think
she was hysterical. She saw quite plainly that by this strange outburst
she had lost his confidence.
She could in no way explain her sudden breaking down. Such a thing had
never happened to her before. She could not understand it, but she was
in no doubt about the unfortunate consequences of it. She was
discredited.