“What is it?”
“Wire to Claverton. Eh?”
She paused. “Well, perhaps that would be the best plan.”
“Good. I’ll cut down and do it now.” And, sliding from the table whereon he had been seated swinging his legs, he reached down a jar of tobacco from a shelf, and hastily cramming his pipe, started off. “What shall I tell him, though?” he asked, suddenly stopping in the doorway. “Won’t do to pitch it too strong, eh?”
“N-no. Wait a bit,” and then she concocted the message which we have seen Claverton receive; and Payne being on his way to despatch it, she turned away with a look of relief over the prospect of decreasing responsibility.
Lilian, meanwhile, had become a mere shadow of her old self, and the one spark of comfort left to her was that her persecutor had kept himself out of her sight. For he had left the city, bound for the seat of war, and, for reasons of his own, he had refrained from bidding farewell to the Paynes in person, but had sent a note explaining that he was ordered off at a minute’s warning. He had got a command at last, he said; only some levies, at present, but still that was something to go on with, and he must leave for the front immediately. Which missive was read by its recipients with feelings of decided relief.
The fact was, the gallant Truscott began to suspect that it might be advisable for him to take himself out of the way for a time, and he had no desire to meet his rival in person. Let the two settle it as best they might, was his cynical reflection; settle it they must, and to his, Truscott’s, satisfaction—on that point he felt perfectly safe. He had played a bold game and had won, and, now that he had won, it would never do to spoil it by any chance blundering. So with a few lines of renewed warning, merciless, pithy, and to the point, posted to Lilian—the wily scoundrel departed for the seat of war, and unless a well-aimed bullet should pierce the black, scheming heart, and of that there was but small chance, there would be no more happiness for her on earth. There were times when she would almost make up her mind to throw off the hateful thrall, to defy him to do his worst, whatever that worst might be; but then would rise up the frightful facts, as he had laid them before her in all their nakedness, and she would fall asleep, only to be haunted by a series of terrible dreams; visions of a crowded court hushened to a deathly silence in expectation of the dread sentence; of a small group in a grim gaol-yard, in the chill morning—one face among them lit up with fiendish exaltation—a noose, a gallows, and a black, hideous beam.
“My love—my sweet lost love!” she would moan, waking from one of these frightful fantasies in a flood of streaming tears. “Was it for this you were restored to me again? Ah, why did we ever meet?” And the black, silent hours melted away into dawn, but brought with them no comfort. More than once had her affectionate hostess tried to get at the secret of her grief—but Lilian was firm. Meanwhile, the Paynes began to grow seriously alarmed. A very little more of this, and the results would be disastrous. Nothing had been heard of the telegram, and they became more and more anxious every day.
“Miss Strange, do let’s go for a walk when I come back; it’ll be such a lovely evening.” The speaker was Rose Payne, who was hurriedly gathering up her books, and cramming them into a bag, preparatory to starting for afternoon school.
“So we will, dear. Only you must come back in good time.”