“I will do as you wish, Harold,” Elaine replied. “It is possible that we shall leave here to-day, but I will let you know soon.”
“Mr. Worboys had better write to my lawyer,” Annesley said, and she flushed redly, saying, “I had forgotten. You will forgive me, Sir Harold?”
He looked at her, pained and startled.
“I did not mean that, Elaine—not in that way; but of course you have not heard of my possible change of plans—how could you? You have not heard that my wife has left me, and been traced to her own home in the village of Tenterden? I am going to her now, and if all is as I wish it to be, we shall go home to the Park.”
Then Lady Elaine told him of Theresa’s visit to her, and much of what had passed between them.
He listened with tear-dimmed eyes, and only murmured, “Poor Theresa!” How many times had he said this of late!
He said good-by to Lady Elaine, and he believed that it was forever; then he went away, and was driven rapidly to Euston. From Euston he was whirled to Tenterden, and then walked through the old, familiar ways to the cottage embowered in trees and flowers.
“My little Theresa,” he thought, “I wonder if she is waiting for me? Oh, how kind I will be to the sensitive, loving child, and may Heaven punish me if I ever neglect my duty to my wife in thought, word or deed.”
He turned in at the gate, and in fancy saw Theresa’s face peeping at him round the porch. Then he shivered, for all was still, with a silence that spoke of death.
He placed his thumb on the latch of the cottage door, and when it opened he was met by Margaret Nugent. In loathing he turned away, saying: “Where is she—where is Theresa?”