Louie stood long at the window, with the paper still clutched eagerly in
her hand, afraid to open it and read the answer, and yet longing to know
what the _Young People's Monitor_ had to say in reply to "Egeria." So
she watched Harry go down to the bathing machines and enter one--it was
still early in the season, and he had no need to wait; and then she
watched them turning the windlass and letting it run down upon the
shelving beach; and then she watched Harry swimming out and stemming the
waves in his bold, manly fashion--he was a splendid swimmer; and after
that, unable any longer to restrain her curiosity, she tore the paper
open with her finger, and glanced down the correspondence column till
she reached the expected answer to "Egeria."
She read it over wondering and trembling, with a sudden awful sense of
the editor's omniscience as she saw the letters "H. P."--her husband's
initials--Harry Pallant. "H. P.!" what could he mean by it? And then a
vague dread came across her soul. What could "Egeria" and the editor of
the _Young People's Monitor_ have to do with Harry Pallant?
She read it over again and again. How terrifying! how mysterious! how
dimly incomprehensible! Who on earth could have told the editor--that
impersonal entity--that "Egeria's" letter had any connection with her
own husband, Harry Pallant? And yet he must have known it--evidently
known it. And she herself had never suspected the allusion. Yes, yes, it
was clear to her now; the man about whom "Egeria" had written was
Harry--Harry--Harry--Harry. Could it have been that that had so troubled
him of late? She couldn't bear to distrust Harry; but it must have been
that, and nothing else. Harry was in love with Dora Ferrand; or, if not,
Dora Ferrand was in love with Harry, and Harry knew it, and was afraid
he might yield to her, and had ran away from her accordingly. He had
come to Bilborough on purpose to escape her--to drag himself away from
her--to try to forget her. Oh, Harry, Harry!--and she loved him so
truly. To think he should deceive her--to think he should keep anything
from her! It was too terrible--too terrible! She couldn't bear to think
it, and yet the evidence forced it upon her.
But how did the editor ever come to know about it? And what was this
mysterious, awful message that he gave Dora about Harry Pallant?
"You need not fear that H. P. will any longer prove a trouble to you."
Why? Did Harry mean to leave London altogether? Was he afraid to trust
himself there with Dora Ferrand? Did he fear that she would steal his
heart in spite of him? Oh, Dora, Dora! the shameless creature! When
Louie came to think it all over, her effrontery and her wickedness were
absolutely appalling.
She sat there long, turning the paper over helplessly in her hand,
reading its words every way but the right way, pondering over what Harry
had said to her that morning, putting her own interpretation upon
everything, and forgetting even to unpack her things and make herself
ready for lunch in the coffee-room.
Presently, a crowd upon the beach below languidly attracted her passing
attention. The coastguard from the look-out was gesticulating
frantically, and a group of sailors were seizing in haste upon a boat on
the foreshore. They launched it hurriedly and pulled with all their
might outward, the people on the beach gathering thicker meanwhile, and
all looking eagerly towards some invisible object far out to sea, in the
direction of the Race with the dangerous current. Louie's heart sank
ominously within her. At that very moment the chambermaid of the hotel
rushed in with a pale face, and cried out in merciless haste, "Oh,
ma'am, Mrs. Pallant! quick! quick!--he's drowning! he's drowning! Mr.
Pallant's swum too far out, and's got into the Race, and they've put the
boat off to try and save him!"
In a second, half the truth flashed terribly upon Louie Pallant's
distracted intelligence. She saw that it was Harry himself who wrote the
correspondence for the _Young People's Monitor_, and that he had swum
out to sea of his own accord to the end of his tether, on purpose to
drown himself as if by accident. But she didn't yet perceive, obvious as
it seemed, that Harry thought she herself had written "Egeria's" letter
in her own person. She thought still he was in love with Dora, and had
drowned himself because he couldn't tear himself away from her for ever.