CHAPTER III.
August 11th.—I returned from parade this morning tired, feverish, and with a weight upon my conscience as though I had committed an unpardonable crime. I felt as if I dared not face my injured wife, still less the woman who has usurped her place in my affections, or rather who holds the place in which the other should have reigned.
Yet I was not only obliged to encounter both of them, but to go through all the formalities of daily life, without which perhaps the trial would have proved too much for my endurance.
Janie was the first; for since her illness she has not risen to breakfast, and I have been in the habit of carrying in her tray for her. It was with a shaking hand that I lifted it to-day; and the poor child noticed the difference in my demeanour, and asked me tenderly if I were ill or tired. I had not quite made up my mind, before that, whether I should inform Janie of her cousin’s propensity for somnambulism or not; but as I met the trusting glance of her blue eyes, I resolved to do so, not only because it was a thing which might occur again and frighten her as before, but also that by confiding even so far in my wife, I seemed voluntarily to place a wider barrier between Lionne and myself. Therefore I sat down on the bed, and first binding her to secrecy, I related to her how I had spent my late nights upon the roof of the house, and by that means arrived at a solution of the mystery which had alarmed the native servants and herself.
‘Didn’t I tell you that your ghost would prove to be nothing?’ I said, trying to speak gaily, in conclusion.
‘Oh, Robert dear,’ was her reply, ‘do you call poor Lionne walking in her sleep nothing? I think it is horrible—almost as bad as a real ghost; and if I had been you, I couldn’t have gone near her for worlds. I should have died of fright first.’
‘But, Janie, you see that I am not a silly little girl, ready to believe every idle tale which is repeated to her. And you must show yourself to be a wise woman on this occasion, and be very careful that the story does not reach your cousin’s ears, as the knowledge is likely to make her worse instead of better. I shall give the ayah orders to hold her tongue, and sleep outside the door in future, so that Miss Anstruther may not wander about again unobserved.’