Bertie and his young bride were still absent on their honeymoon; this also by Lucas's express desire.
"It won't help me any to have you here, boy," he had said at parting. "A certain fuss is inevitable, but I want you out of it. I am looking to Anne Carfax to help the dear mother."
He had known even then that he would not look in vain, and he had not been disappointed. So, sorely against his will, Bertie had submitted, with the proviso that if things went wrong he should be sent for immediately.
And thus Anne Carfax, who had lived in almost unbroken seclusion since her husband's death, now sat with Mrs. Errol's hand clasped in hers, and listened, as one listens in a nightmare, to the wailing of the wind about the garden and house, and the beat, beat, beat of her heart when the wind was still.
"Could you say a prayer, dear?" Mrs. Errol asked her once.
And she knelt and prayed, scarcely knowing what she said, but with a passion of earnestness that left her weak, quivering in every limb.
The wind was rising. It roared in the trees and howled against the panes. Sometimes a wild gust of rain lashed the windows. It made her think of an unquiet spirit clamouring for admittance.
"Anne dear, play to me, play to me!" besought Mrs. Errol. "If I listen I shall go mad! No one will hear you. We are right away from his part of the house."
And though every nerve shrank at the bare suggestion, Anne rose without a single protest and went to the piano. She sat down before it, and blindly, her eyes wide, fixed, unseeing, she began to play.
What she played she knew not. Her fingers found notes, chords, melodies mechanically.