"I sent it from Loch Boisdale."
A wave of relief pa.s.sed over Linda"s face.
"It will not come up until the morning," she said with a smile.
"As a matter of fact, the driver brought it up with him," said Glynn.
And Martin handed to Mrs. Thresk the telegram. Over his shoulder, Glynn saw Thresk raise his head. He had been standing by the table listening to what was said. Now he advanced. He was a tall man, powerfully built, with a strongly-marked, broad face, which was only saved from coa.r.s.eness by its look of power. They made a strange contrast, the husband and wife, as they stood side by side--she slight and exquisitely delicate in her colour, dainty in her movements, he clumsy and big and masterful. Glynn suddenly recalled gossip which had run through the town about the time of their marriage. Linda had been engaged to another--a man whose name Glynn did not remember, but on whom, so the story ran, her heart was set.
"Of course you are very welcome," said Thresk, as he held out his hand, and Glynn noticed with something of a shock that his throat was bandaged. He looked towards Linda. Her eyes were resting upon him with a look of agonised appeal. He was not to remark upon that wounded throat. He took Thresk"s hand.
"We shall be delighted if you will stay with us as long as you can,"
said Thresk, "We have been up here for more than three months. You come to us from another world, and visitors from another world are always interesting, aren"t they, Linda?"
He spoke his question with a quiet smile, like a man secretly amused.
But on Linda"s face fear flashed out suddenly and was gone. It seemed to Glynn that she was at pains to repress a shiver.
"Martin will show you your room," said Thresk. "What"s the matter?"
Glynn was staring at the table in consternation. Where had been the use of all the pretence that he had come unexpectedly on an unpremeditated visit? His telegram had only this minute arrived--and yet there was the table laid for three people. Thresk followed the direction of his visitor"s eyes.
"Oh, I see," he said with a laugh.
Glynn flushed. No wonder Thresk was amused. He had been sitting at the table; and between himself and his wife the third place was laid.
"I will go up and change," said Glynn awkwardly.
"Well, don"t be long!" replied Thresk.
Glynn followed Martin to the guest-room. But he was annoyed. He did not, under any circ.u.mstances, like to look a fool. But he had the strongest possible objection to travelling three hundred miles in order to look it. If he wanted to look a fool, he grumbled, he could have managed it just as well in the Midlands.
But he was to be more deeply offended. For when he came down into the dining-room he walked to the table and drew out the vacant chair. At once Thresk shot out his hand and stopped him.
"You mustn"t sit there!" he cried violently. Then his face changed.
Slowly the smile of amus.e.m.e.nt reappeared upon it. "After all, why not?" he said. "Try, yes, try," and he watched Glynn with a strange intentness.
Glynn sat down slowly. A trick was being played upon him--of that he was sure. He was still more sure when Thresk"s face relaxed and he broke into a laugh.
"Well, that"s funny!" he cried, and Glynn, in exasperation, asked indignantly:
"What"s funny?"
But Thresk was no longer listening. He was staring across the room towards the front door, as though he heard outside yet another visitor. Glynn turned angrily towards Linda. At once his anger died away. Her face was white as paper, and her eyes full of fear. Her need was real, whatever it might be. Thresk turned sharply back again.
"It"s a long journey from London to North Uist," he said pleasantly.
"No doubt," replied Glynn, as he set himself to his dinner. "But I have come from South Uist. However, I am just as hungry as if I had come from London."
He laughed, and Thresk joined in the laugh.
"I am glad of that," he said, "for it"s quite a long time since we have seen you."
"Yes, it is," replied Glynn carelessly. "A year, I should think."
"Three years," said Thresk. "For I don"t think that you have ever come to see us in London."
"We are so seldom there," interrupted Linda.
"Three months a year, my dear," said Thresk. "But I know very well that a man will take a day"s journey in the Outer Island"s to see his friends, whereas he wouldn"t cross the street in London. And, in any case, we are very glad to see you. By the way," and he reached out his hand carelessly for the salt, "isn"t this rather a new departure for you, Glynn? You were always a sociable fellow. A hunting-box in the Midlands, and all the lighted candles in the season. The Outer Islands were hardly in your line." And he turned quickly towards him. "You have brought your guns?"
"Of course," said Glynn, laughing as easily as he could under a cross-examination which he began to find anything but comfortable.
"But I won"t guarantee that I can shoot any better than I used to."
"Never mind," said Thresk. "We"ll shoot the bog to-morrow, and it will be strange if you don"t bring down something. It"s full of duck.
You don"t mind getting wet, I suppose? There was once a man named Channing----" he broke off upon the name, and laughed again with that air of secret amus.e.m.e.nt. "Did you ever hear of him?" he asked of Glynn.
"Yes," replied Glynn slowly. "I knew him."
At the mention of the name he had seen Linda flinch, and he knew why she flinched.
"Did you?" exclaimed Thresk, with a keen interest. "Then you will appreciate the story. He came up here on a visit."
Glynn started.
"He came here!" he cried, and could have bitten out his tongue for uttering the cry.
"Oh, yes," said Thresk easily, "I asked him," and Glynn looked from Thresk to Thresk"s wife in amazement. Linda for once did not meet Glynn"s eyes. Her own were fixed upon the tablecloth. She was sitting in her chair rather rigidly. One hand rested upon the tablecloth, and it was tightly clenched. Alone of the three James Thresk appeared at ease.
"I took him out to shoot that bog," he continued with a laugh. "He loathed getting wet. He was always so very well dressed, wasn"t he, Linda? The reeds begin twenty yards from the front door, and within the first five minutes he was up to the waist!" Thresk suddenly checked his laughter. "However, it ceased to be a laughing matter.
Channing got a little too near the sapling in the middle."
"Is it dangerous there?" asked Glynn.
"Yes, it"s dangerous." Thresk rose from his chair and walked across the room to the window. He pulled up the blind and, curving his hands about his eyes to shut out the light of the room, leaned his face against the window-frame and looked out. "It"s more than dangerous,"
he said in a low voice. "Just round that sapling, it"s swift and certain death. You would sink to the waist," and he spoke still more slowly, as though he were measuring by the utterance of the syllables the time it would take for the disaster to be complete--"from the waist to the shoulders, from the shoulders clean out of sight, before any help could reach you."
He stopped abruptly, and Glynn, watching him from the table, saw his att.i.tude change. He dropped his head, he hunched his back, and made a strange hissing sound with his breath.
"Linda!" he cried, in a low, startling voice, "Linda!"
Glynn, unimpressionable man that he was, started to his feet. The long journey, the loneliness of the little house set in this wild, flat country, the terror which hung over it and was heavy in the very atmosphere of the rooms, were working already upon his nerves.
"Who is it?" he cried.
Linda laid a hand upon his arm.
"There"s no one," she said in a whisper. "Take no notice."
And, looking at her quivering face, Glynn was inspired to ask a question, was wrought up to believe that the answer would explain to him why Thresk leaned his forehead against the window-pane and called upon his wife in so strange a voice.