XXII

Lady Constantine flung down the old-fashioned lacework, whose beauties

she had been pointing out to Swithin, and exclaimed, 'Who can it be? Not

Louis, surely?'

They listened. An arrival was such a phenomenon at this unfrequented

mansion, and particularly a late arrival, that no servant was on the

alert to respond to the call; and the visitor rang again, more loudly

than before. Sounds of the tardy opening and shutting of a passage-door

from the kitchen quarter then reached their ears, and Viviette went into

the corridor to hearken more attentively. In a few minutes she returned

to the wardrobe-room in which she had left Swithin.

'Yes; it is my brother!' she said with difficult composure. 'I just

caught his voice. He has no doubt come back from Paris to stay. This is

a rather vexatious, indolent way he has, never to write to prepare me!'

'I can easily go away,' said Swithin.

By this time, however, her brother had been shown into the house, and the

footsteps of the page were audible, coming in search of Lady Constantine.

'If you will wait there a moment,' she said, directing St. Cleeve into a

bedchamber which adjoined; 'you will be quite safe from interruption, and

I will quickly come back.' Taking the light she left him.

Swithin waited in darkness. Not more than ten minutes had passed when a

whisper in her voice came through the keyhole. He opened the door.

'Yes; he is come to stay!' she said. 'He is at supper now.'

'Very well; don't be flurried, dearest. Shall I stay too, as we

planned?'

'O, Swithin, I fear not!' she replied anxiously. 'You see how it is. To-

night we have broken the arrangement that you should never come here; and

this is the result. Will it offend you if--I ask you to leave?'

'Not in the least. Upon the whole, I prefer the comfort of my little

cabin and homestead to the gauntness and alarms of this place.'

'There, now, I fear you are offended!' she said, a tear collecting in her

eye. 'I wish I was going back with you to the cabin! How happy we were,

those three days of our stay there! But it is better, perhaps, just now,

that you should leave me. Yes, these rooms are oppressive. They require

a large household to make them cheerful. . . . Yet, Swithin,' she added,

after reflection, 'I will not request you to go. Do as you think best. I

will light a night-light, and leave you here to consider. For myself, I

must go downstairs to my brother at once, or he'll wonder what I am

doing.'

She kindled the little light, and again retreated, closing the door upon

him.

Swithin stood and waited some time; till he considered that upon the

whole it would be preferable to leave. With this intention he emerged

and went softly along the dark passage towards the extreme end, where

there was a little crooked staircase that would conduct him down to a

disused side door. Descending this stair he duly arrived at the other

side of the house, facing the quarter whence the wind blew, and here he

was surprised to catch the noise of rain beating against the windows. It

was a state of weather which fully accounted for the visitor's impatient

ringing.

St. Cleeve was in a minor kind of dilemma. The rain reminded him that

his hat and great-coat had been left downstairs, in the front part of the

house; and though he might have gone home without either in ordinary

weather it was not a pleasant feat in the pelting winter rain. Retracing

his steps to Viviette's room he took the light, and opened a closet-door

that he had seen ajar on his way down. Within the closet hung various

articles of apparel, upholstery lumber of all kinds filling the back

part. Swithin thought he might find here a cloak of hers to throw round

him, but finally took down from a peg a more suitable garment, the only

one of the sort that was there. It was an old moth-eaten great-coat,

heavily trimmed with fur; and in removing it a companion cap of sealskin

was disclosed.

'Whose can they be?' he thought, and a gloomy answer suggested itself.

'Pooh,' he then said (summoning the scientific side of his nature),

'matter is matter, and mental association only a delusion.' Putting on

the garments he returned the light to Lady Constantine's bedroom, and

again prepared to depart as before.

Scarcely, however, had he regained the corridor a second time, when he

heard a light footstep--seemingly Viviette's--again on the front landing.

Wondering what she wanted with him further he waited, taking the

precaution to step into the closet till sure it was she.

The figure came onward, bent to the keyhole of the bedroom door, and

whispered (supposing him still inside), 'Swithin, on second thoughts I

think you may stay with safety.'

Having no further doubt of her personality he came out with thoughtless

abruptness from the closet behind her, and looking round suddenly she

beheld his shadowy fur-clad outline. At once she raised her hands in

horror, as if to protect herself from him; she uttered a shriek, and

turned shudderingly to the wall, covering her face.

Swithin would have picked her up in a moment, but by this time he could

hear footsteps rushing upstairs, in response to her cry. In

consternation, and with a view of not compromising her, he effected his

retreat as fast as possible, reaching the bend of the corridor just as

her brother Louis appeared with a light at the other extremity.

'What's the matter, for heaven's sake, Viviette?' said Louis.

'My husband!' she involuntarily exclaimed.

'What nonsense!'

'O yes, it is nonsense,' she added, with an effort. 'It was nothing.'

'But what was the cause of your cry?'

She had by this time recovered her reason and judgment. 'O, it was a

trick of the imagination,' she said, with a faint laugh. 'I live so much

alone that I get superstitious--and--I thought for the moment I saw an

apparition.'

'Of your late husband?'

'Yes. But it was nothing; it was the outline of the--tall clock and the

chair behind. Would you mind going down, and leaving me to go into my

room for a moment?'

She entered the bedroom, and her brother went downstairs. Swithin

thought it best to leave well alone, and going noiselessly out of the

house plodded through the rain homeward. It was plain that agitations of

one sort and another had so weakened Viviette's nerves as to lay her open

to every impression. That the clothes he had borrowed were some cast-off

garments of the late Sir Blount had occurred to St. Cleeve in taking

them; but in the moment of returning to her side he had forgotten this,

and the shape they gave to his figure had obviously been a reminder of

too sudden a sort for her. Musing thus he walked along as if he were

still, as before, the lonely student, dissociated from all mankind, and

with no shadow of right or interest in Welland House or its mistress.

The great-coat and cap were unpleasant companions; but Swithin having

been reared, or having reared himself, in the scientific school of

thought, would not give way to his sense of their weirdness. To do so

would have been treason to his own beliefs and aims.

When nearly home, at a point where his track converged on another path,

there approached him from the latter a group of indistinct forms. The

tones of their speech revealed them to be Hezzy Biles, Nat Chapman, Fry,

and other labourers. Swithin was about to say a word to them, till

recollecting his disguise he deemed it advisable to hold his tongue, lest

his attire should tell a too dangerous tale as to where he had come from.

By degrees they drew closer, their walk being in the same direction.

'Good-night, strainger,' said Nat.

The stranger did not reply.

All of them paced on abreast of him, and he could perceive in the gloom

that their faces were turned inquiringly upon his form. Then a whisper

passed from one to another of them; then Chapman, who was the boldest,

dropped immediately behind his heels, and followed there for some

distance, taking close observations of his outline, after which the men

grouped again and whispered. Thinking it best to let them pass on

Swithin slackened his pace, and they went ahead of him, apparently

without much reluctance.

There was no doubt that they had been impressed by the clothes he wore;

and having no wish to provoke similar comments from his grandmother and

Hannah, Swithin took the precaution, on arriving at Welland Bottom, to

enter the homestead by the outhouse. Here he deposited the cap and coat

in secure hiding, afterwards going round to the front and opening the

door in the usual way.