The room was empty and we sat down to table, I quivering with excitement and awaiting events. Through the open window I saw Elliott walking rapidly down the village street. Presently the waitress went off, and I being too excited to eat or to speak, Lady Molly carried on a running conversation with Miss Joan, asking her about her life in India and her father, Captain Duplessis. Joan admitted that she had always been her father’s favourite.
“He never liked Henriette, somehow,” she explained.
Lady Molly asked her when she had first known Roonah.
“She came to the house when my mother died,” replied Joan, “and she had charge of me as a baby.” At Pondicherry no one had thought it strange that she came as a servant into an officer’s house where her own sister had reigned as mistress. Pondicherry is a French Settlement, and manners and customs there are often very peculiar.
I ventured to ask her what were her future plans.
“Well,” she said, with a great touch of sadness, “I can, of course, do nothing whilst my aunt is alive. I cannot force her to let me live at Fordwych or to acknowledge me as her heir. After her death, if my sister does assume the title and fortune of d’Alboukirk,” she added, whilst suddenly a strange look of vengefulness—almost of hatred and cruelty—marred the child-like expression of her face, “then I shall revive the story of the tragedy of Roonah’s death, and I hope that public opinion——”
She paused here in her speech, and I, who had been gazing out of the window, turned my eyes on her. She was ashy-pale, staring straight before her; her hands dropped the knife and fork which she had held. Then I saw that Pegram had come into the room, that he had come up to the table and placed a packet of papers in Lady Molly’s hand.
I saw it all as in a flash!
There was a loud cry of despair like an animal at bay, a shrill cry, followed by a deep one from Pegram of “No, you don’t,” and before anyone could prevent her, Joan’s graceful young figure stood outlined for a short moment at the open window.
The next moment she had disappeared into the depth below, and we heard a dull thud which nearly froze the blood in my veins.