“What? Is he here? You told me——”
The old lady was now so much excited and alarmed that she could scarcely gasp out the words.
“He is staying not far from here,” replied Mabin cautiously.
The visitor got up.
“No, I do not wish to see him. I wish to see no one but Mrs. Dale. I cannot understand why she keeps me waiting like this. I have come all the way from Yorkshire to oblige her, at great inconvenience to myself.”
Mabin could not understand it either, knowing as she did that Mrs. Dale had expected her visitor. In the present state of affairs every unlooked-for occurrence assumed a portentous aspect, so that she felt rather alarmed.
“I will go and tell her you are here,” she said.
She was glad to be out of the presence of this terrible woman. And as she ran out into the garden and then dropped into a sedate walk as she passed the drawing-room windows, her heart went out to the old lady’s victim more than it did to that of the young one.
Under the lime-trees, where she had last seen Mrs. Dale, she met Rudolph alone. She greeted him with a white face, and without a smile.
“Where is she—Mrs. Dale?” she then asked at once.