Just at the same time Lady Lisle's barouche was getting very close to
the swing gates and the carriage drive of the Denes, with her ladyship
leaning back.
"Was not that a vehicle of some kind leaving the stable yard, Thomas?"
she said to the coachman.
"Yes, my lady."
"Could you see what it was?"
"Not quite, my lady, but I think it was ours, with Black Nelly in the
sharps, for I heard one of the clicks she gives when she oversteps with
her off hind hoof."
Lady Lisle wondered, and started the next minute when she heard another
click.
But this time it was the latch of the swing gate, half-drowned by the
carriage wheels on the drive leading to the front door.
Then she fell to wondering again, and alighted to enter the house.
Just as she stepped down, a telegraph-boy came up on his bicycle,
smiling, and ready to touch his cap, as he held out to her one of the
familiar tinted envelopes, with prophetic notions about Christmas-boxes
in the future.
"A message!" she said, changing colour for the moment, as thoughts of
the possibilities so often hidden beneath one of those official
envelopes crossed her mind.
"Yes, m'lady. Any answer?"
As head of the establishment of the Denes, bought and paid for with the
money which formed her dowry, she took the message as a matter of
course, and opened it without glancing at the direction, dropped the
envelope on to the stone steps, and the pleasant breeze whisked it in
among the shrubs.
She had turned pale on receiving the telegram. As she read it she
turned pink on finding it was a private communication not intended for
her eyes, and then scarlet with indignation and wrath.
"Why, this is dated yesterday," she cried angrily.
"Yes, m'lady. We had such a lot o' racing messages, my Gee couldn't get
'em all through. But we've got a special gal on, and it'll be all right
now."
"No answer!" said Lady Lisle, sharply, and she hurried into the hall,
and from thence into the breakfast-room, to stand with temples
throbbing, reading the message again--
"All found out at last. Do pray tell her ladyship. She won't be very
hard upon us if you confess everything. Not sorry, after all, for it
must have been known soon. Do, do come over, and face it out with me.
Pray, pray come.--La Sylphide."
"Oh-h-h-h!" moaned the poor woman, in a quivering sob; and she stood
rigid for a few minutes, crushing the message in her hand, suffering
agonies from the awakening for the first time in her life of the passion
known as jealousy. It filled her, so to speak, and overmastered
everything. There could be no other possibility--no doubt--the demon
had her in its grasp, and everything now had some bearing upon the
message. All passages in her life during the past few months tended
towards proving that she had been basely, cruelly deceived.
Hilton had gradually been growing colder and more indifferent; he had
grown moody and thoughtful. It had struck her that he was careless
about the Parliamentary business, and had not seemed to be grateful
when, in a mingled spirit of generosity and vanity, she, the wife to
whom he had sworn fidelity, had placed four thousand pounds to his
credit in the bank.
Here was the reason.
"Stop!" she cried mentally. "I will not be rash."
She looked at the telegram again, read it, and then noted that the
postmark was Tilborough; and she turned it over to examine the envelope,
which she had dropped--she did not recall in her half-crazy state when
or where.
But it was enough--the boy had given it to her, and it could be for no
one else.
"Oh, Hilton, Hilton!" she groaned. "Has it come to this? A liaison
with some low-born, base creature. Kept with my money. This is why you
have always been so short; this is why you have always been degrading
yourself by asking for more. `All found out at last. Do pray tell her
ladyship. She won't be very hard upon us!' Indeed!" she said,
half-aloud, and through her hard-set teeth. "Of course not. Oh-h-h! I
could have overlooked a relapse into his old gambling vice, but this--
this baseness! The villain--the villain!"
"Who is it?" she muttered, reading again, "La Sylphide. Some French
creature, dwelling in that nest of infamy, Tilborough. Why! Oh, great
heavens! That wretched racing woman--that widow! She must have been
coming here to see him this morning when we passed. Oh, I see it all
now. The telegram--dated yesterday--he did not join her according to
her request, and she had the daring effrontery to come after him here.
That is it. `All found out at last!' What could be all found out at
last? Oh--oh--oh!"
Lady Lisle covered her face with her hands, the coloured paper crackling
softly as it touched her temples, making her start as if it had stung
her burning skin, and dash it down upon the carpet and stamp upon it in
disgust.
But it was a proof of her husband's infidelity, she thought, and she
stooped and picked it up, wishing her fingers were the tongs, as she
smoothed it out, doubled it, and held it ready for the interview about
to take place.
"And so I am not to be very hard I am to condone everything. Well," she
added, with a bitter laugh which seemed to tear itself from her
throbbing breast, "we shall see."
She paused again, with her poor brain seeming to seethe with wildly
jealous thoughts, every one garnished with cruel suspicions, and seeming
to tell more and more against the culprit, till everything was in a
whirl. But all the time she was suffering from the belief that she was
seeing more and more clearly as the cruel moments glided on.
"Yes, I see it all now," she cried passionately; "poor, weak, deluded,
loving fool that I have been! Vile, treacherous wretch! Horrible
creature! Yes, of course. A woman who is said to have refused offer
after offer since her poor husband's death. La Sylphide--of course, as
if I had not heard that she bought a portion of Hilton's stud when his
horses were sold, and one was this Sylphide, whose name she dares to
assume in her clandestine communications to him. Oh, how kind to me
Fate has been! To think of it! I might have been a trusting victim for
years--hoodwinked--blinded to their infamy. Ah! he shall find out what
the weak, loving, confiding woman whom he has deceived can be."
There was a very peculiar smile upon Lady Lisle's handsome face as she
crossed to the fireplace, to be met by Khan, the Persian cat, who
descended from his ottoman, stretched himself, and made ready to give
himself a comforting electric rub against his mistress's silk dress, but
to his astonishment was--not kicked, but thrust violently aside by a
boot, to stand staring, while her ladyship continued her march.
She did not rush, but went to the bell deliberately.
"Yes, I will be firm and calm," she said, half-aloud, and the smile grew
more strained and peculiar. It was such a look as Medea of old might
have worn when a certain trouble of classic fame had arisen with a
gentleman named Jason; but she dragged at the bell-handle in a way which
brought Jane in a hurry to the room.
"I will not seek him in his study," muttered the poor woman, tragically.
"I will have him fetched to me here."
"Your ladyship rang?" said Jane, looking at her mistress wonderingly.
"Yes. Go and--no, stop. Where is Master Sydney?"
"I think he has gone fishing, my lady. I saw him with his rod and
basket. Oh, yes, my lady, I remember, he asked me to cut him some
sandwiches."
Jane's tongue wanted to say a few words about the flask and sherry, but
she had a sort of sneaking liking for the saucy young rascal, and she
suppressed that.
"To be sure, I remember," said Lady Lisle, quite cold and calm now--upon
the surface. "Go and ask Sir Hilton to join me here."
"Sir Hilton, my lady?"
"Yes. Did I not speak plainly?" said her ladyship, cuttingly.
"Yes, my lady, but I thought you had forgotten again. Sir Hilton's gone
out."
"Gone out?"
This came like a volcanic burst through the calm envelope.
"Yes, my lady."
The eruption was checked, and the calm aspect closed up, as the bright
envelope of the sun eliminates a sun-spot at times.
"Has he--er--gone fishing with Master Sydney?"
"No, my lady; I didn't see, for I was doing your room. But he ordered
the dogcart, Mark said, and they've gone together."
"Where did Mark say they were going?"
Lady Lisle was losing her calmness at this check to her plans.
Jane was silent.
"Why do you not speak, girl?" came in sternly tragic tones.
"Please, my lady, I'd rather not."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to get a fellow-servant into trouble."
"Speak out at once, girl. No fellow-servant of yours will meet with
injustice while I am mistress of the Denes."
"Of course not, my lady."
"Tell me then, at once, what more Sir Hilton's groom and valet said."
"Well, my lady, if I must I must; but it wasn't Mark's fault."
"Certainly not. Go on."
"Mark said he thought they were going over to the races, but he was not
sure."
"H'm!" sighed Lady Lisle, and then to herself: "Tilborough--the
telegram--an excuse."
Jane backed towards the door, and had already taken the handle, when,
after a fierce internal struggle with the jealous rage within her, Lady
Lisle said in a slow, would-be careless way: "Did anyone call while I
was out?"
"Yes, my lady; Dr Granton."
"That was while I was away with the pony-carriage, Jane. I returned and
saw him."
"Of course; so you did, my lady."
"I meant since."
"Yes, my lady; after you'd gone in the b'rouche. Lady Tilborough came
on horseback."
"To call on me?"
"She asked for Sir Hilton, my lady."
"Ha!" ejaculated the jealous woman, through the envelope.
"But she said something, my lady," cried Jane, womanlike, grasping her
mistress's feelings and eager to put matters right. "Ah, what did she
say?" came like lightning.
"She said you wasn't at home, my lady, for she met you in the road."
"The brazen deception!" said Lady Lisle to herself. "A cloak of cunning
to try and hide her sin."
"She did not stop very long, my lady, but went off before I could get to
the door. I think she wanted to see Dr Granton."
"Of course," cried her mistress, with the calm envelope now rent to
tatters, and the agony of passion carrying all before it. "And what
then?"
Jane was silent.
"I said what then? Speak out, girl; I command you!"
"I beg pardon, my lady," stammered the girl, growing fluttered before
the fierce gaze and losing her presence of mind completely, and wildly
misconstruing the stern question.
For maddened by her feelings, Lady Lisle took three or four quick steps
towards the girl and caught her by the wrist. "You are keeping
something back," she cried. "How dare you! Answer me at once, and tell
me all you know."
Jane burst out sobbing. "Don't, my lady; don't," she cried. "You hurt
my arm."
"Then speak out--at once."
"But I don't like to, my lady. I'm very sorry for you; I am, indeed,
but--but--but pr'aps it mayn't be so bad as you think, and--and--and--I
don't like to make mischief."
The girl's genuine suffering had a peculiar effect upon Lady Lisle.
"Thank you, Jane," she said sadly. "I have always tried to be a good
mistress to you."
"You have, my lady, though you've always been a bit 'aughty," cried
Jane, through her sobs and tears, "and I'd do anything to help you now
you're in such grief."
"Tell me, then, all--all, my good girl."
"Well, my lady, I was in the room over here--the blue room, my lady."
"Yes, yes; go on."
"And I happened to be at the window, when I saw, as I thought, a boy
come up quick on his bicycle, slip in through the gate, and come up."
"To the front door. Yes, yes, with another telegraphic message?"
"No, my lady; that's what I thought, but he--he only come to the window
here, and got in."
"Got in?"
"Yes, my lady; for I reached out and there was the bicycle leaning up
against the creepers and the roses, and I could hear voices, and someone
sobbing, and--and--"
Jane's mouth shut with a snap.
"Why do you stop?" said Lady Lisle, excitedly.
"I don't--don't like to tell you any more, my lady. I don't--I don't
indeed."
"Jane!"
"Pray don't make me tell, my lady," sobbed the girl; "it will hurt you
so."
"I must bear it, Jane," said the poor woman, hoarsely. "I must know the
truth."
Jane gave a gulp, as if she was swallowing something, and her voice
changed almost to a whisper, as she went on: "I could hear whispering,
my lady, and--and--and--Oh! don't make me tell, my lady."
"I must know, Jane," cried the quavering questioner, in a tone which
completely mastered all further hesitation.
"There was kissing, my lady, quite plain, and she--"
"_She_?"
"Yes, my lady--began sobbing and crying, and him whispering to her not
to make such a noise or she'd be heard, and calling her dear and
darling, I think, but it was all so low."
Lady Lisle groaned.
"And it went on ever so long, my lady," continued Jane, whose hesitation
was turned now in her excitement to volubility; "and then, as I stood
there at the window listening, she jumped out, and I drew my head in;
but I peeped out once more and she--"
"She?" gasped Lady Lisle, again.
"Oh, yes, my lady, it was a she, of course, for I just caught sight of
her face as she turned to hold the gate back when she went through on
her bicycle. It was a girl in national costume"--Jane meant
rational--"and she was very little and very pretty and one side of her
hair had come half down."
"Oh!" groaned Lady Lisle, closing her eyes and reeling towards the
nearest chair; but she would not have reached it if the girl with clever
alertness had not caught her round the waist and saved her from a fall.
"Oh, don't--don't faint, my lady!--Pray--pray hold up!"
"I shall be better directly, Jane," said the poor woman, hoarsely. "Let
me sit still a few moments. Ha!" she sighed. "I am coming round. That
giddiness is passing away."
"Let me fetch you your salts, my lady."
"No, Jane; I shall not need them. There, I am growing strong again.
Yes, I can go on now."
"Go on, my lady?"
"Yes, girl. Go into the hall and ring the coachman's bell."
"Yes, my lady; but oh! please forgive me--what are you going to do?"
"To do, Jane?"
"Yes, my lady. Don't do anything rash."
"Oh, no; I shall do nothing rash, Jane," said the lady, smiling sadly.
"I mean, don't you go and run away to your father, because perhaps it
ain't so bad as we think."
"Not so bad as we think, Jane?" said Lady Lisle, drearily.
"No, my lady. You see, it might all be a mistake."
"Yes, Jane," said her mistress, looking desolately in the girl's eyes,
while a piteous smile came upon her lips; "as you say, it might all be a
mistake. But go now, and do as I bid you."
"Ye-e-es, my lady."
"Ring, and when the coachman comes tell him to bring the carriage round
as quickly as he can."
"But, oh, my lady," sobbed Jane, and she caught and kissed her
mistress's hands one after the other, "don't, pray don't! You are going
to run away and leave him, and my mother said a lady ought never to do
that unless he's been very, very bad."
"I am not going away from my home, Jane," said Lady Lisle, growing
firmer now. "Tell Thomas I want him to drive me over to Tilborough at
once."
"To the races, my lady?"
"No," was the reply, firmly given; and then, as the girl glided out of
the door, rubbing her eyes the while, the stricken woman repeated the
word aloud: "No," and added thoughtfully: "I have been deceived about
Lady Tilborough. Now to trace out my husband and that other wretch!"