“Then we aren’t any forrader,” Carruthers returned imperturbably, “except that we have a clue to Arnott’s whereabouts, which in my opinion you have no right to keep from his wife.”
“We don’t know positively that she isn’t fully informed,” she replied.
Mrs Carruthers was worried, and felt consequently irritated. Dare’s letter had reopened a subject which had been slipping comfortably into the background of her thoughts. She was sorry for Pamela, whom she would willingly have helped had it lain in her power; but Pamela made no offer to confide in her. She never referred to Arnott’s absence,—never spoke of him now. Mrs Carruthers formed the opinion that she still had no knowledge of his movements, that she did not know when to expect him back. An unpleasant sense of mystery hung over the affair, which imposed a painful constraint on their friendly relations. Pamela avoided intercourse with her neighbours, and was seldom to be seen without the children; it was as though she used them as a shield to guard against awkward encounters. But that she was unhappy was very obvious. She had become transformed into a thoughtful, care-worn woman, in whose eyes there lurked always a haunting expression of dread. It was this expression which, in spite of Pamela’s aloofness, kept Mrs Carruthers’ sympathies alight, and moved her, against her very earnest desire to keep George Dare from mixing himself up in Pamela’s affairs, to write to him, and request him to discover if he could what Arnott was doing in Johannesburg.
Her letter brought Dare to Wynberg. He descended upon her in his usual informal manner, announcing his intended visit by telegram, and following the announcement as speedily as circumstances permitted. This course was a practice with him of many years’ standing, and never before the present occasion had Mrs Carruthers resented it. The receipt of the telegram annoyed her. She had asked him to find out certain things about Arnott, and in response he had come away from the centre where he could have instigated inquiries which might have elicited useful information, led by some wild, unaccountable impulse which he ought, she felt, to have resisted. That he would come down had been the last thought in her mind.
Dare received a frigid welcome. He was in a way prepared for this. The letter she had written had been so vague and guarded in its wording that he had read between the lines her desire to keep him in the dark as far as possible as to the reason for the inquiries she wished him to make. Dare had no intention of being kept in the dark in any matter relating to Pamela. He intended to find out things for himself.
“You don’t appear overjoyed to see me,” he observed to his unwelcoming hostess, whose greeting of him lacked the warmth and kindliness he was accustomed to from her.
“I am not,” she answered severely. “Whatever did you come for?”
“To see Pamela,” he replied unhesitatingly.
“Why?”
“Because from your mysterious communication I judged she was in some difficulty. You gave me a few insufficient facts. I want details. If you won’t give them to me, she will.”