"Oh, no, long before that."
"Perhaps, then, it was when he was making love to you," with a slight smile.
This is a sore point.
"I don't remember that time," says Miss Beauchamp with perfect calmness but a suspicious indrawing of her rather meagre lips. "If some one must go out to-night, Guy, why not send Thomas?"
"Because I prefer going myself," replies he, quietly.
Passing through the hall on his way to the door, he catches up a heavy plaid that happens to be lying there, on a side-couch, and, springing into the open trap outside, drives away quickly under the pale cold rays of the moon.
He has refused to take any of the servants with him, and so, alone with his thoughts, follows the road that leads to Steynemore.
They are not pleasant thoughts. Being only a man, he has accepted Miss Beauchamp's pretended doubts about Lilian's safety as real, and almost persuades himself his present journey will bear him only bitter disappointment. As to what he is going to do if Lilian has not been seen at Steynemore, that is a matter on which he refuses to speculate. Drawing near the house, his suspense and fear grow almost beyond bounds. Dismounting at the hall-door, which stands partly open, he flings the reins to Jericho, and going into the hall, turns in the direction of the drawing-room.
While he stands without, trying to summon courage to enter boldly, and literally trembling with suppressed anxiety, a low soft laugh breaks upon his ear. As he hears it, the blood rushes to his face; involuntarily he raises his hand to his throat, and then (and only then) quite realizes how awful has been the terror that for four long hours has been consuming him.