She does not draw breath until she finds herself safe in her own little room, with just five precious minutes (precious, unusual five minutes, gained only by that swift run that has left them all behind) in which to think out as calmly as she can what has befallen her.
A thief! She had called him a thief! He—Mr. Crosby—the distinguished traveller! Oh! what is to become of her? Not even now, at this last gasp, does she try to persuade herself that the man in the Crosby pew was a fraud—that he wasn’t Mr. Crosby. She knows as positively as though she had been introduced to him that he is Mr. Crosby.
Introduced to him! As if——She covers her face with her hands. No, no; there need be no fear of that. He will go away soon—at once. People say he cannot bear civilized life; that he always hankers after savages, and lions, and things. He will go away, of course. Oh, if only he will go away soon enough, and never come back! Susan, with her hands before her gentle eyes, has sudden dreams of people who have been devoured by lions, and for the first time fails to see the extreme horror of it.
Yes, he will go away soon; and in the meantime—well, in the meantime it is very unlikely that she will come face to face with him.
‘Susan, Susan! are you there?’
‘Yes,’ says Susan. She goes to the door, and finds Jacky on the threshold of it.
‘Dinner is ready,’ says that solemn youth; ‘and they sent me up for you.’
‘I can’t come down,’ says Susan. ‘I have a headache. Jacky—dear, dear Jacky, say I have a headache. And I have, too—I have indeed. There won’t be any lie. The heat—you must have felt the heat in church—you fell asleep——’
‘Yes, I know,’ says Jacky, in his queer way, that always expresses anger with difficulty suppressed. ‘You won’t come down, then?’
‘No; I can’t—I——’ She lifts her hand to her head.