There was an ominous light in his mother"s eyes, and a look of troubled inquiry in Mildred"s face that told him a revelation was coming.
His mother"s eyes transfixed him the instant he appeared.
"I thought your wife was coming?"
"Harriet had a shocking bad headache. She has been ill all day," he replied, hastily. "It was quite impossible for her to leave her room.
She regrets----"
"That will do, Everard!" His mother rose as she spoke, with a short laugh. "I understand it all. Don"t trouble yourself to explain. Let us go to the dining-room--dinner waits."
"But, my dear mother, it is really as I say. Harrie is ill."
"Ill? Yes, ill of a guilty conscience, perhaps! Such a mother--such a daughter! I always knew how this mad _mesalliance_ would end. I don"t know that I am surprised. I don"t know that I regret it. I am only sorry that my son"s wife should be the first to disgrace the name of Kingsland!"
"Disgrace? Take care, mother! That is an ugly word."
"It is. But, however ugly, it is always best to call these things by their right names."
"These things! What under heaven do you mean?"
"Do you really need to ask?" she said, with cold contempt. "Are you indeed so blind where this woman is concerned? Why, my son"s wife is the talk of the town, and my son sits here and asks me what I mean?"
"Mamma! mamma!" Mildred said, imploringly. "Pray don"t! You are cruel! Don"t say such dreadful things!"
"Your mother is cruel, and unjust, and unnatural!" he said, in a hard, hoa.r.s.e voice. "Do you tell me what she means, Mildred."
"Don"t ask me, Everard!" Mildred said, in distress. "We have heard cruel, wicked stories---false, I know--about Harrie and--and a stranger--an American gentleman--who is stopping at the Blue Bell Inn."
"Yes, Everard," his mother said, pity for him, hatred of his wife, strangely mingled in look and tone, "your bride of a month is the talk of the place. The names of Lady Kingsland and this unknown man go whispered together from lip to lip."
"What do they say?"
"Nothing!" Mildred exclaimed, indignantly--"nothing but their own base suspicions! She nearly fainted at first sight of him. He showed her a picture, and she ran out of the room and fell into hysterics. Since then he has written to her, and mysterious personages--females in disguise--visit him at the Blue Bell. That is what they whisper, Everard; nothing more."
"Nothing more!" echoed her mother. "Quite enough, I think. What would you have, Miss Kingsland? Everard, who is this man?"
"You appear to know more than I do, mother. He is an American--a traveling photograph artist--and my wife never laid eyes on him until she saw him, the day after our arrival, in the library. As to the fainting and the hysterics, I chanced to be in the library all through that first interview, and I saw neither one nor the other. I am sorry to spoil the pretty romance in which you take such evident delight, my good, kind, charitable mother; but truth obliges me to tell you it is a fabrication from beginning to end. And now, if you will be good enough to tell me the name of the originator of this report, you will confer upon me the last favor I shall ever ask of you. My wife"s honor is mine; and neither she nor I will ever set foot in a house where such stories are credited--not only credited, but exulted in. Tell me the name of your tale-maker, Lady Kingsland, and permit me to wish you good-evening."
"Everard!" his sister cried, in agony.
But he cut her short with an impatient wave of his hand.
"Hush, Mildred; let my mother speak."
"I have nothing to say." She stood haughtily before him, and they looked each other full in the face, mother and son. "My tale-maker is the whole town. You can not punish them all, Sir Everard. There is truth in this story, or it never would have originated; and he has written to her--that is beyond a doubt. He had told it himself, and shown her reply."
"It is as false as h.e.l.l!" His eyes blazed like coals of fire. "My wife is as pure as the angels, and any one who dares doubt that purity, even though it be the mother who bore me, is my enemy to the death!"
He dashed out of the house, mounted Sir Galahad, and rode away as if Satan and his hosts were after him.
"Mamma! mamma!" Mildred cried, in unutterable reproach, "what have you done?"
"Told him the truth, child. It is better he should know it, although that knowledge parts us forever."
Like a man gone mad the young baronet galloped home. The sickly glimmer of the fitful moon shone on a face that would never be more ghastly in his coffin--on strained eyes and compressed lips. It seemed to him but an instant from the time he quitted The Grange until he dashed up the avenue at Kingsland, leaped off his foaming bay, and strode into the house. Straight to his wife"s room he went, fierce, invincible determination in every line of his rigid face.
"She shall tell me all--she shall, by Heaven!" he cried.
He entered her dressing-room--she was, not there; her boudoir--she was not there; her bedroom--it too was empty. He seized the bell and nearly tore it down. Claudine, the maid, looked in with a startled face.
"Where is your mistress?"
The girl gazed round with a bewildered air.
"Is my lady not here, sir? She sent me away over an hour ago. She was lying down in her dressing-room; she said she was ill."
He looked at her for a moment--it was evident she was telling the simple truth.
"Send Miss Silver here."
"I am not sure that Miss Silver is in the house, Sir Everard. I saw her go out with Edwards some time ago but I will go and see."
Claudine departed. Five minutes pa.s.sed--ten; he stood rigid as stone.
Then came steps--hurried, agitated--the footsteps of a man and a woman.
He strode out and confronted them--Edwards, his valet, and Sybilla Silver. Both were dressed as from a recent walk; both wore strangely pale and agitated faces.
Edwards barely repressed a cry at sight of his master.
"What is it?" Sir Everard asked.
The valet looked at Sybilla in blank terror. Miss Silver covered her face with both hands and turned away.
"What is it?" the baronet repeated, in a dull, thick voice. "Where is my wife?"
"Sir Everard, I--I don"t know how--she--she is not in the house."
"Where is she?"
"She is--in the grounds."
"Where?"
"In the Beech Walk."
"With whom?"
"With Mr. Parmalee."