"Of course he at once jumped to the conclusion that she had abandoned an infant, living or dead. He naturally shied off being identified with a discovery of that sort, so he, I think, if I remember rightly, did not walk back, but waited for the first bobby that came along, and, telling him who he was, related what he had seen. Well, of course, when instead of a corpse or an infant they only found a bottle with some brandy in it, he felt rather small. But the bobby was sharper witted than he. 'There's summut rum about this, sir, or I'm very much mistaken,' he said; and he was right. There was something 'rum.' The brandy in that bottle was drugged with morphia; and there is a lot of interviewing of him going on which points, I believe, although he only winks at me and fences questions, that the detectives are on the track, and that the brandy bottle will hang that woman, whoever she is. Dear me! the curtain is going up. I must return to my friend below. Entre nous, the very fellow I was talking about is in the house to-night. Au revoir, my lord."
Joan contrived to return his bow; she held herself together sufficiently to wait until he was safely out of the box; then she clutched at Vansittart as wildly as if she were drowning in deep waters and he was the forlorn hope, the last available thing to grasp at.
"Take me home, or I shall die," she gasped.
CHAPTER XXXII
"Yes, certainly, we will go. Bear up, my dearest, you are safe with me. I deserve to be shot for bringing you to see this cursed stuff," murmured Vansittart, as he supported Joan to the box door, and, sending the attendant for iced water, brandy, salts, anything, tended her lovingly until he saw a faint colour creep back into her cheeks and lips, when, thanking the damsel, who had not been unsympathetic, and slipping a gold coin into her hand, he took his beloved carefully down into the open air and once more drove her home in a hansom.
She clung feebly to him as she lay almost helpless upon his breast--the cool night air, the darkness of the silent street under the starry sky, thrice welcome after her agony in that hot, glaring theatre--clung, feeling as if all else in her life were shipwrecked, engulfed in an ocean of horror, only he, her faithful lover, the one rock that remained. And a word of confession from her, one damning incident that betrayed her guilt, and she would lose even that grip on life and be hopelessly submerged.
"I am so sorry--I was so silly," she feebly began, but he interrupted her with almost passionate determination.
"My darling, I know, I understand!" he exclaimed. "That was your friend's story in a stage play. Joan, I feel I must protect you from yourself, for you have allowed an innocent, girlish freak of yours to lay hold of you in an unconceivable manner. It would be absurd, if it were not morbid."
He held forth eloquently on the folly of retrospection, of exaggerating the follies of youth, not only during the drive home, but when they were alone together in the cool dining room, for Sir Thomas was out, and Lady Thorne, not expecting them home so early, had retired for the night; and when he left her in Julie's hands, unwillingly obeying her behest, her demand, given with feverish energy, that her maid was not to be told that she had been attacked with faintness, he felt a little more at ease about her.
Suspect her he did not, except of being one of the most highly strung and sensitive creatures alive. And, being sure that this was so--feeling safe in his unbounded love and trust--she was able to rally.