“Miss Halcombe, ma’am, has not left Blackwater Park either.”
When I heard that astounding answer, all my thoughts were startled
back on the instant to my parting with Lady Glyde. I can hardly say I
reproached myself, but at that moment I think I would have given many a
year’s hard savings to have known four hours earlier what I knew now.
Mrs. Rubelle waited, quietly arranging her nosegay, as if she expected
me to say something.
I could say nothing. I thought of Lady Glyde’s worn-out energies and
weakly health, and I trembled for the time when the shock of the
discovery that I had made would fall on her. For a minute or more my
fears for the poor ladies silenced me. At the end of that time Mrs.
Rubelle looked up sideways from her flowers, and said, “Here is Sir
Percival, ma’am, returned from his ride.”
I saw him as soon as she did. He came towards us, slashing viciously
at the flowers with his riding-whip. When he was near enough to see
my face he stopped, struck at his boot with the whip, and burst out
laughing, so harshly and so violently that the birds flew away,
startled, from the tree by which he stood.
“Well, Mrs. Michelson,” he said, “you have found it out at last, have
you?”