Inley went on: “She had a handkerchief tied over her cap and under
her chin, and a small lantern in her hands, on which she wore black
mittens. I can see her now. We stood there on the path for a minute
staring at each other without a word. The light from the lantern
flickered over the revolver, and I saw Miss Bassett look down at it.”
He stopped, poured out a glass of water, and drank it off like a man
who has been running.
“Didn’t she show surprise—fear?” I asked.
“Not a bit. Women are so extraordinary, even old women who’ve never
been in touch with life, that I’m certain now she understood directly
her eyes fell on the revolver.”
“What did she do?”
“After a minute she said: ‘Lord Inley, I’m looking for my cat. Have you
seen him?’
“‘Yes,’ I said; ‘he’s run into the house.’
“It was a lie, but I wanted her to go in. I had slipped the revolver
back into my pocket, and tried to assume a perfectly simple, natural
air. I fancied it would be very easy to impose on Miss Bassett when
I heard her question. It sounded so innocent, as if the old lady was
full of her pet. I even thought, perhaps, she had not known what the
revolver was when she looked at it.
“‘Did he run into the house?’ she said, still looking at me from under
her wrinkled eyelids.
“‘Yes; when you came out. He was here on the path with me. You called
“Johnny!” and he ran off there between the mulberry-trees.’
“All the time I was speaking to her I had an eye to the road, and
my ears were listening like an Indian’s when he puts his head to the
ground to hear the pad of his enemy.
“Miss Bassett stood there quietly for a moment as if she were
considering something. She looked prim. I remember that even now—prim
as a caricature. It was only a moment, but it seemed to me an hour. ‘If
they should come,’ I thought, ‘while she is out here!’ The sweat came
out all over my face with impatience—an agony of impatience. I longed
to take the old lady by the shoulders, push her into the cottage, lock
her in, and be alone, able to watch the bit of road from the Abbey
gates to the wicket. But I could do nothing. I was obliged to repress
every sign of agitation. It was devilish.”
He got up with a sudden jerk from his chair, and stood by the fire.
Even the telling of that moment had set beads of moisture on his
square, low forehead.
“At last she spoke again.
“‘I wonder if you’d mind coming in for a minute to help me see if
Johnny really is in the house?’ she said.
“I don’t know what I should have done—refused, I believe, refused her
with an oath, for I began to feel mad; but just at that instant up came
the cat once more, purring like fury, and lifting up his tail. He made
straight for me, and began to rub himself against my legs again.
“‘Oh!’ said Miss Bassett, ‘there he is! Naughty Johnny, naughty boy!
Lord Inley, perhaps you’d be so good as just to lift him up and put him
inside the door for me. I always have such a job to get him to come
in of a night. He likes hunting in the woods. Doesn’t he, the naughty
Johnny?’
“‘Now’s my chance to get rid of her!’ I thought.
“I bent down, picked the cat up, and went along the path towards the
cottage, Miss Bassett following close behind me. The cat was an immense
beast, awfully heavy, and just as I turned out of the yew path to go up
to the cottage door he began struggling to get away, and scratching.
I held on to him, but it wasn’t easy, and I got my hand torn before
I dropped him down inside the little hall. Away he ran, towards the
kitchen, I suppose. Miss Bassett was very grateful, but I cut her
gratitude short.
“‘Very glad to have been able to help you,’ I said. ‘Good-night.’
“‘Good-night, Lord Inley,’ she said.
“I thought her voice sounded a little bit odd when she said that, and
I just glanced at her funny old face, lit up by the lantern she was
holding in one mittened hand. She didn’t look at me this time as she
had in the garden. Then I went out, and she immediately shut the door.
“‘Thank God!’ I thought, and I hurried to the wicket. I didn’t dare
stay in the garden now. Seeing her had made me realise my blackguardism
in coming in at all, considering my reason. I resolved to hide in the
field at the corner where the road turns off to Charfield. As I opened
the wicket, instinctively I put my hand into my pocket for my revolver.”
He bent down, looking full into my eyes.
“It wasn’t there.”
“Miss Bassett!” I exclaimed.
“In a moment I realised that Miss Bassett must have grasped the
situation; that her asking me to carry in her cat was a ruse, and that
while the beast was struggling between my hands she must have stolen
the revolver from behind. I say I knew that, and yet even then, when I
thought of her look, her manner, the sort of nervous old thing she was,
I couldn’t believe what I knew. Then I remembered her voice when she
said ‘Good-night’ to me in the passage, her eyes looking down instead
of at me, and that she was only holding the lantern in one hand,
whereas in the garden she was using two. She must have had the revolver
in her other hand concealed in the folds of her dress. I ran back to
the cottage door, and knocked—hard. Not that I thought she’d open. I
knew she wouldn’t, but she did directly. I could hardly speak. I was
afraid of myself just then. At last I said:
“‘Miss Bassett, you know what I want.’
“‘You can’t have it,’ she said, looking straight at me.
“I kept quiet for a second, then I said:
“‘Miss Bassett, I don’t think you know that you’re running into
danger.’ For I felt that there was danger for her then if she went
against me. She knew it, too, perhaps better than I did. I saw her poor
old hands, all blue veins, beginning to tremble.
“‘You can’t have it, Lord Inley,’ she repeated.
“There wasn’t the ghost of a quiver in her voice.
“‘I must, I will!’ I said, and I made a movement towards her—a violent
movement I know it was.
“But the old thing stood her ground. Oh, she was a gallant old woman.
“‘Do what you like to me,’ she said. ‘I’m old. What does it matter?
She’s young.’
“Then I knew she understood.
“‘You’ve seen them together!’ I said. ‘Since I went!’
“She wouldn’t say. Not a word. I was mad. I forgot decency, everything.
I took her. I searched her for the revolver. I searched her roughly—God
forgive me. She trembled horribly, but never said a word. It wasn’t
on her. She must have hidden it somewhere in that moment when she was
alone in the cottage. That was another ruse to keep me searching in
there while—But I saw it almost directly. I broke away, and rushed
out and down the road. Something seemed to tell me they had passed. I
got into the lane that leads to Charfield. The fly was gone. Then, all
of a sudden, I felt perfectly calm. I turned, and went up to the Abbey
gates. I knocked them up at the lodge. The keeper came out. When he saw
me he said:
“‘You, my lord! However did you know?’
“‘Go on!’ I said. ‘Know what?’
“‘About Master Hugo?’
“I didn’t say one way or the other.
“‘The doctor says it’s a bitter bad quinsy, but there’s just a chance.
Her ladyship’s nearly mad. It only came on a few hours ago quite
sudden.’
“I went up to the Abbey, and found Vere by the child’s bed. She looked
flushed, and was breathing hard, as if she had just been running.”
He stopped, and took out his cigar-case.
“Running!” I said.
“She had parted finally from Glynd in front of Miss Bassett’s cottage,”
he said. “He told me that afterwards.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then he spoke more calmly.
“I went up to town when the child was safe, and had it out with Glynd.
They had meant to go that night. It was the boy who stopped her. She
took it as a judgment. You know how women are. Glynd swore she was
stopped in time. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t lie to me.”
“And your wife?”
“I never spoke of it to her. I saw her with the boy, and—well, I saw
her with the boy, and what she was to him when he was close to death.”
His voice went for a moment. Then he added:
“I told her I’d had a presentiment Hugo was ill. She believed me, I
think. If not, she’s kept her secret.”
Just then the dining-room door opened, and Lady Inley put in her pretty
head.
“Are you never coming?” she said with her little childish drawl.