"It is very kind of her," I said, huskily. "Good-night, Marian!"
"Good-night, Hughie. Don't sit up late, dear, and don't fret. It makes me feel so selfish, Hugh, to think that I can't help being happy because—because of Charlie, but I can't help it. I do love him so, and he is so good to me."
Then at last she went, and I was left alone. First of all I put a heavy shade upon the lamp and placed it so that no one could possibly see it from outside. Then I finished loading my revolver, and put a life-preserver in my breast pocket. Going out on tip-toe into the hall, I opened the passage door, and also left my own wide open, so that if any one should attempt to enter the house from any room I must hear them. This seemed to me to be all that I could do, and drawing my easy chair into the corner of the room which faced both door and windows, I sat down and waited patiently with my revolver on my knee.
At first the time did not seem long. I had come to a crisis in my life, and there was much for me to think about. In the twenties, however dark and doubtful the future may be, there is always a certain fascination connected with it—possibilities, however remote, which the sanguine spirit of youth loves to peer into and investigate. And so I sat and thought, and considered, and longed, without ever getting sleepy, or feeling the spell of weariness.
Two o'clock struck, and of a sudden a curious change came over me. I became so violently restless that I could sit no longer in my chair. Sober-minded people may scoff at such a statement, but I declare that some irresistible impulse compelled me to go to the nearest window and look cautiously out.
The window was not one of the front ones, but was one which looked sideways over a strip of garden, a thick privet hedge, into a dark black fir plantation, through which ran a private pathway into the gardens of the Court. At first I could see nothing; then suddenly the blood died out from my cheeks, even from my lips, and I stood transfixed, rooted to the spot—my limbs numbed and helpless as though under the spell of some hideous nightmare.
What my eyes looked upon my reason refused to credit. Turning from the hand-gate of the plantation, without a hat, and with a wealth of golden hair streaming down upon a swan's-down cloak, was—Maud! It was impossible—it was ridiculous—it was beyond all credence. And yet my straining, riveted eyes watched her walk slowly, with her usual stately, even tread, down the grass-grown path between the plantation and the hedge of the cottage garden, and disappear from sight.
Though an earthquake had yawned at my feet I could not have moved. Nothing but sound can break up such a spell as this sudden shock had laid upon me. And the sound came, for suddenly there broke upon the stillness of the night such a cry as I had never heard before—the thrilling, agonised shriek of a woman in mortal fear.