Jean Briggerland discovered a new arrival on her return to the house.
Jack Glover had come unexpectedly from London, so Lydia told her, and
Jack himself met her with extraordinary geniality.
"You lucky people to be in this paradise!" he said. "It is raining like
the dickens in London, and miserable beyond description. And you're
looking brown and beautiful, Miss Briggerland."
"The spirit of the warm south has got into your blood, Mr. Glover," she
said sarcastically. "A course at the Riviera would make you almost
human."
"And what would make you human?" asked Jack blandly.
"I hope you people aren't going to quarrel as soon as you meet," said
Lydia.
Jean was struck by the change in the girl. There was a colour in her
cheeks, and a new and a more joyous note in her voice, which was
unmistakable to so keen a student as Jean Briggerland.
"I never quarrel with Jack," she said. She assumed a proprietorial air
toward Jack Glover, which unaccountably annoyed Lydia. "He invents the
quarrels and carries them out himself. How long are you staying?"
"Two days," said Jack, "then I'm due back in town."
"Have you brought your Mr. Jaggs with you?" asked Jean innocently.
"Isn't he here?" asked Jack in surprise. "I sent him along a week ago."
"Here?" repeated Jean slowly. "Oh, he's here, is he? Of course." She
nodded. Certain things were clear to her now; the unknown drencher of
beds, the stranger who had appeared from nowhere and had left her father
senseless, were no longer mysteries.
"Oh, Jean," it was Lydia who spoke. "I'm awfully remiss, I didn't give
you the parcel I brought back from the hospital."
"From the hospital?" said Jean. "What parcel was that?"
"Something you had sent to be sterilized. I'll get it."
She came back in a minute or two with the parcel which she had found in
the car.
"Oh yes," said Jean carelessly, "I remember. It is a rug that I lent to
the gardener's wife when her little boy was taken ill."
She handed the packet to the maid.
"Take it to my room," she said.
She waited just long enough to find an excuse for leaving the party,
and went upstairs. The parcel was on her bed. She tore off the
wrapping--inside, starched white and clean, was the dust coat she had
worn the night she had carried Xavier from the cottage to Lydia's bed.
The rubber cap was there, discoloured from the effects of the
disinfectant, and the gloves and the silk handkerchief, neatly washed
and pressed. She looked at them thoughtfully.
She put the articles away in a drawer, went down the servants' stairs
and through a heavy open door into the cellar. Light was admitted by two
barred windows, through one of which she had thrust her bundle that
night, and she could see every corner of the cellar, which was empty--as
she had expected. The clothing she had thrown down had been gathered by
some mysterious agent, who had forwarded it to the hospital in her name.
She came slowly up the stairs, fastened the open door behind her, and
walked out into the garden to think.
"Jaggs!" she said aloud, and her voice was as soft as silk. "I think,
Mr. Jaggs, you ought to be in heaven."