His physical equilibrium was disturbed. It had always been a part of Antony Harcourt’s power with men, as with women, that no matter how seriously they might take him, he should take himself and them with gentlest ease. But to-night he was a prey to two passions that would not let their presence be denied. A passion of resentment against his whilom host; a longing to feel his own hand striking that cold, pale cheek, or yet to see a thin stain of blood upon that affectedly old-fashioned waistcoat spreading and running down, whilst he should smile and wonder that it should actually show red.
The other passion! He was in love with the widow Marvel—as damnably in love as the raw boy, Herrick, himself, with the added torture of the roué who has never yet known denial, of the materialist who can console himself with no poetic fancies and can dull his senses with no falutin of sensibility.
A month ago, if anyone had told him that his elegant person should house two such wild beasts, he would not have thought the suggestion even worth the trouble of a smile. Now, as he lay back on his wooden chair, eyeing the ruby in his glass with a deep, vindictive eye, Colonel Harcourt felt his savage guests tear at him, and was in as dangerous a mood as ever undid a fool or made a criminal. All at once the heat of the room, of the wine, of his own fierce mood, stifled him. He rose, lit himself a cigar, and sallied out, bare-headed and uncloaked, into the sweet, still night.
The inn stood a little apart from the village—a gunshot distance from the gates of Bindon Park. Colonel Harcourt paced a few steps down the moonlit white road and paused, drawing reflective puffs, feeling almost without noticing how grateful was the cool air upon his head, hearing without listening the mysterious whisper of the trees on the other side of the park walls. He moved his cigar from his lips and hesitated.
Then, on an impulse that was as sudden as it was purposeless, he turned off from the hard road, silver in the moonlight, and struck over the stile into the darkness of the narrow, tree-shaded path that led to the church on the grounds. From this, giving the Rectory a wide berth, he branched off, and, aimlessly enough, directed his steps towards the House. Twelve strokes of the night floated gravely from the little square church tower. A dog bayed in the village and was answered in deeper note from Bindon stable-yards. On went Antony Harcourt fitfully, slowly, now pausing, now beating time with steady footfall to an evil little pipe of song that the dark secret world and his own heart seemed to take up, one after the other, like a catch.
A dry stick snapped sharply under his feet, the light of a lantern flashed upon his face, a hand fell heavily on his shoulder. It was one of the keepers, who instantly apologised profoundly to Bindon’s personable guest and sped him on his way with a reverential “Good-night, sir,” succeeded by a stare and a shrug. The ways of gentle-folk were strange.
Burgundy is a wine that long remains hot in the blood. Colonel Harcourt’s pulses were throbbing. A curious excitement pervaded his being. Like the sails of a mill under a fitful breeze, anon his brain whirled with plans, anon seemed to stagnate, unable to formulate a thought. He found himself at last standing at the entrance of the ruins, at the back of the Herb-Garden. Before him the tower-wing of the house cut the shimmering star-shine with pointed gable, with massed chimney stack, with the huge black square of the keep, all fantastically picked out by stripes of moonlight. The curious exotic spices of the Herb-Garden rose against his nostrils.
He flung upwards a look of scorn:—was the brain-sick star-gazer even now at his telescope? Upon the sweep of his downward glance an illumined window caught and arrested his attention. He made a rapid calculation from the gables—Mistress Marvel’s window!
Lady Lochore still kept them at late hours it seemed, in this whilom sleepy house! The fair widow was doubtless but just disrobing for the night. As he gazed somewhat sentimentally—what tricks will Clos-Royal and the witchery of a Lammas-night play even with a middle-aged gentleman of vast experience and acute sense of humour!—suddenly he started and stared, open mouthed upon a curse.
Something black and tall and slight, a man’s figure, had appeared against the bright open window, cutting it across with outstretched arms and, almost at the same moment, something dimly pale and of soft outline, a woman’s figure, flung itself between his eyes and the unexpected vision. He caught a glimpse of white bare arms. Then all vanished again as if it had not been, and there was naught but the lighted window, open to the night, confiding, innocent, tranquil.