In a way, it was almost a relief to know that perhaps before long the strain of the past weeks would be lifted. Even the violence of a final snap would be preferable to the constant nerve racking uncertainty he had been suffering.
Disappointment and bitterness had set a wall about his heart, and he told himself as he looked after Digby"s retreating figure that he did not care what happened.
Faith would go if she wanted to. Well, let her! He would not lift a finger to detain her.
He turned back to his papers, and Digby crossed the hall to the drawing-room where the two girls were sitting together in constrained silence.
Peg had been trying to read one of her favourite novelettes, a particularly exciting one of its kind, in which the hero had just been confronted at the altar steps with a previous wife. But she could not keep her thoughts on what she was reading. She was restless and unhappy.
Her nerves seemed tightly strung, as if she were waiting for something unknown to happen.
When the door opened to admit Digby she started up with a little exclamation, laughing nervously to hide her agitation.
"Oh, it"s you? You made me jump."
Digby looked past her to where Faith sat on a low stool by the fire. He wished there was some way of getting rid of Peg. He had never liked her, and he knew that she disliked him as heartily.
His entrance was followed almost immediately by a knock on the door, and Peg started up again.
"Oh, come in! Gracious! I"m all nerves to-night."
But it was only one of the maids. She looked round the room apologetically. "I thought the master was here," she said.
"He"s in the study." It was Digby who answered, and the door closed again, only to re-open almost immediately.
"The master has gone out, ma"am." The girl looked at Faith. "And it"s Mr. Farrow, from the factory, to see him; most urgent he says it is."
Faith turned her face away.
"I don"t know where he has gone," she said, in a cold little voice.
"Tell Mr. Farrow."
The maid was leaving the room when Peg sprang up. She brushed past the astonished girl unceremoniously, and went straight to where Farrow, the manager of Heeler"s, stood in the hall, nervously twisting his hat.
"What"s the matter?" she asked, in her usual direct fashion.
Farrow knew Peg well, and had always had a queer sort of respect for her, in spite of the odd things which he knew had been said of her from time to time.
He answered without hesitating that there was trouble brewing down at the works, and that he had come to warn Mr. Forrester to stay at home that evening.
"I"ve warned him before," he added, in distress. "But I might as well have spoken to the wall."
Peg caught her breath with a little hard sound.
"Who is it, Ben Travers and his gang?" she asked.
"Yes. Ben had too much drink in the Green Man public-house, close by Heeler"s, last night, and he talked, and I know that if Mr. Forrester"s wise he will stay at home to-night."
"But he"s gone already!" The words burst from Peg"s lips in despair.
For a moment she stood staring at him, her handsome face quite colourless. Then she turned suddenly and rushed upstairs.
She caught up the first coat she could find, and, hatless as she was, rushed down again and out through the front door, running to overtake Farrow, who had already left the house.
She caught him up at the end of the street, breathless and panting.
"Get a taxi! Oh, how slow you are!" she broke out pa.s.sionately.
She dashed out into the road, nearly getting run over in her excitement, and pulled up a slowly pa.s.sing taxicab.
Farrow had recovered himself and hurriedly followed.
"It may be all bluff," he said, rather shamefacedly, as they drove away; "but I don"t like the look of things, and that"s a fact. And I thought it my duty to warn the guv"nor." Man-like, he hated to feel that he had made an unnecessary fuss.
Peg did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the dark night, and her hands hard clasped in her lap. Every second seemed an eternity. The speeding cab seemed to crawl.
Presently she broke out hoa.r.s.ely:
"You are sure--sure that"s where he has gone--to Heeler"s?"
"He told me he should go. He told me to meet him there," Farrow answered.
Peg bit her lip till the blood came.
"And you think--do you think ... they are ... waiting for him?"
"That was what it sounded like from the talk."
"Who told you?"
"The landlord of the Green Man overheard and sent for me."
Peg groaned. Her love for Forrester exaggerated the possible danger a thousandfold. She suffered tortures as they drove through the dark streets; and when at last the cab stopped close to the closed gates of Heeler"s factory she flung herself from it headlong.
But the whole building was in darkness, and when she shook the padlocked gates with frantic hands they yielded nothing.
The cabman was staring at her curiously, and Peg came back to consciousness of her surroundings with a little gasping laugh.
She looked at Farrow.
"He can"t have come, after all," she said faintly. Farrow shrugged his shoulders. He was beginning to feel rather foolish.
Peg spoke to him sharply.
"Pay the man, and tell him to go. What"s he think he"s staring at?"
She was angry and shaken; she leaned against the closed yard gates, trembling from head to foot. Suddenly she laughed.
"Well--we"ve had a wild-goose chase," she said dryly. "Come on, we may as well go home. I daresay Mr. Forrester went to his club after all.
Come on, I say," she added angrily as Farrow did not move. "What are you waiting for?"