"We"ll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don"t!"
Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter for her to London--an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn"t want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it--personally. She couldn"t go herself--till after the doctors" consultation, which was to be held on Monday--if then.
Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly.
"It"s Sat.u.r.day. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself--at the office--if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they seem to put me off."
Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as to their hopes and expectations--why was it they now seemed to her so foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while before.
And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss Toogood"s father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her and listened to her, loath to let her go.
But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake her.
Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, breathless, laid a hand on her arm.
"I wanted to speak to you!"
"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face.
"I wanted to tell you--that there are suspicions--about Monk Lawrence.
You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!"
There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly.
"I don"t know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower."
"Don"t, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced urgency. "You have been seen at night--following Daunt about, examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won"t betray us. I"ve seen to that. But you must give it up--you _must_! I have written to Miss Marvell."
Marion Andrews laughed,--a sound of defiance.
"All right. I don"t take my orders from any one but her. But you are mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night."
And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to her brother"s house, and was immediately out of sight.
Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was no longer trusted--no longer in the inner circle--and that Gertrude herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women gathered in Miss Toogood"s parlour. She had ability, pa.s.sion, and the power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I have been a child in their hands!--they have _never_ trusted me!" Heart and vanity were equally wounded.
As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound--a voice--a tall figure in the twilight.
"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look for you."
"Aren"t you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired pre-occupation.
"Yes--our business collapsed. Our clerk"s too good--leaves us nothing to do. So I"ve been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge."
Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the moment--the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently communicated its own emotion to her.
They walked up the drive together.
"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause.
"Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night, France tells me, that he may be able to say "out of danger" to-morrow.
If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a jolly run."
Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice.
She hadn"t ridden for a long time.
Winnington laughed aloud. He told--deliberately--a tale of a young lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride--of a Valkyrie--a Brunhilde--who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and ranged the wide world alone--
"Oh!"--cried Delia, "where did you hear that?"
He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on the heights when he had first heard her name.
"Next day came the lawyers" letter--and yours--both in a bundle."
"You"ll agree--I did all I could--to put you off!"
"So I understood--at once. You never beat about the bush."
There was a tender laughter in his voice. But she had not the heart to spar with him. He felt rather than saw her drooping.
Alarm--anxiety--rushed upon him, mingled in a tempest-driven mind with all that Madeleine Tonbridge, in the Maumsey drawing-room, had just been saying to him. That had been indeed the plain speaking of a friend!--attacking his qualms and scruples up and down, denouncing them even; asking him indignantly, who else could save this child--who else could free her from the sordid entanglement into which her life had slipped--but he? "You--you only, can do it!" The words were still thundering through his blood. Yet he had not meant to listen to his old friend. He had indeed withstood her firmly. But this sad and languid Delia began, again, to put resistance to flight--to tempt--to justify him--driving him into action that his cooler will had just refused.
Suddenly, as they walked under the overshadowing trees of the drive, her ungloved hand hanging beside her, she felt it taken, enclosed in a warm strong clasp. A thrill, a shiver ran through her. But she let it stay. Neither spoke. Only as they neared the front door with the lamp, she softly withdrew her fingers.
There was no one in the drawing-room, which was scented with early hyacinths, and pleasantly aglow with fire-light. Winnington closed the door, and they stood facing each other. Delia wanted to cry out--to prevent him from speaking--but she seemed struck dumb.
He approached her.
"Delia!"
She looked at him still helplessly silent. She had thrown off her hat and furs, and, in her short walking-dress, she looked singularly young and fragile. The change which had tempered the splendid--or insolent--exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had made it in Winnington"s eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "pa.s.sed into her face," like the sculptor"s last subtle touches on the clay.
"Delia!" How all life seemed to have pa.s.sed into a name! "I"m not sure that I ought to speak! I"m not sure it"s fair. It--it seems like taking advantage. If you think so, don"t imagine I shall ever press it again.
I"m twenty years older than you--I"ve had my youth. I thought everything was closed for me--but--" He paused a moment--then his voice broke into a low cry--"Dear! what have you done to make me love you so?"
He came nearer. His look spoke the rest.
Delia retreated.
"What have I done?" she said pa.s.sionately.
"Made your life one long worry!--ever since you saw me. How can you love me?--you oughtn"t!--you oughtn"t!"
He laughed.
"Every quarrel we had I loved you the better. From our very first talk in this room--"
She cried out, putting up her hands, as though to protect herself against the power that breathed from his face and shining eyes.
"Don"t--don"t!--I can"t bear it."
His expression changed.