She began to think quickly, and her thoughts, confused at first, straightened themselves out like threads disentangled from a knot.
The woman had marched up to the veranda with such unfaltering certainty that it seemed she must have been there before. Perhaps she had arrived while the mistress of the house was out, and had been walking about the place, to pass away the time.
"But she hasn't come to see me," the girl in the hammock thought. "She has come to see Knight. It's for him she is waiting."
Anger stirred in Annesley's heart, anger against Knight as well as against Madalena.
"Has he written and told her to come?" she asked herself. "Does she think she can stay in this house? No, she shall not! I won't have her here!"
She was half-minded to rise abruptly and surprise the Countess, as the Countess had surprised her; to ask why she had come, and to show that she was not welcome. But if Madalena were here at Knight's invitation she would stay. There would be a scene perhaps. The thought was revolting. Annesley lay still; and in the distance she heard the throbbing of a motor.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ALLEGORY
Annesley knew that Knight was in the habit of coming home that way, in order not to disturb her with the noise of the car if she had gone to bed. If he were bringing parcels from the little mining town, he drove to the house, left the packets, and ran the auto to a shanty he had rigged up for a garage.