Antony had been in some doubt that Olivia would come. But he had thought it natural that she should come to him in such an hour of distress, for he knew the simple directness of her nature. Therefore he had taken no chance. He had gone to High Wycombe, ransacked its simple provision shops, and brought away a lunch basket.
She was for returning to the Castle to lunch. But he persuaded her to stay. She needed no great pressing; she had a feeling that every hour was precious, that it was unsafe to lose a single one of them: a foreboding that she and Antony might not be together long. It almost seemed that a like foreboding weighed on him. At times they seemed almost feverish in their desire to wring the last drop of sweetness out of the swiftly flying hour.
After lunch again the thought came to her that she ought to go back to the Castle, that she might be needed, and missed; but it found no expression. She could not tear herself away. She had been denied joy too long, and it was intoxicating.
It was five o'clock before she left the Pavilion. She walked briskly, with her wonted, easy, swinging gait, back to the Castle, in a dream, her anxiety and fear for the while forgotten. On her way up to her suite of rooms she met no one. She was quick to take off her hat and ring for her tea. Elizabeth Twitcher brought it to her, and from her Olivia learned that only Mr. Manley had asked for her. She realized that, after all, thanks to her dead husband, she was but an inconspicuous person in the Castle. No one had been used to consult her in any matter. She was glad of it. At the moment all she desired was freedom of action, freedom to be with Antony; and the fact that the life of the Castle moved smoothly along in the capable hands of Mrs. Carruthers and Mr. Manley gave her that freedom.
After her tea she went out into the rose-garden and was strolling up and down it when Mr. Flexen, pondering the information which he had obtained from William Roper, saw her and came out to her. He thought that she shrank a little at the sight of him, but assured himself that it must be fancy; surely there could be no reason why she should shrink from him.
"I'm told, Lady Loudwater, that you went out through the library window into the garden for a stroll about a quarter to twelve last night. Did you by any chance, as you went in or came out, hear Lord Loudwater snore? I want to fix the latest hour at which he was certainly alive. You see how important it may prove."
She hesitated, wrinkling her brow as she weighed the importance of her answer. Then she looked at him with limpid eyes and said:
"Yes."
He knew—the sixth sense of the criminal investigator told him—that she lied, and he was taken aback. Why should she lie? What did she know? What had she to hide?
"Did you hear him snore going out, or coming in?" he said.