Mabin shut her eyes and tried to disentangle the knot of strange ideas that filled her brain:
What was the nature of the secret which weighed on the conscience of Mrs. Dale? Why was she kept in luxury by the very woman who tried to make her life unbearable, to cut her off from every human friend? What was the strange tie between the hard, elderly woman and the impulsive, volatile young one? What was the vision which had caused her so much distress? And, above all, why, if it was only a vision, did she try to keep it away by locking the door?
And why—and why—? More questions surged up into her tired brain; but Mabin forgot them as they rose. She fell asleep.
When she awoke in the morning it was to find that some one was knocking at the door, and then she heard the housemaid’s voice announcing that it was eight o’clock. She sprang up, and looked toward the sofa, but there was no one but herself in the room.
Surely, she thought, the strange visit of the night must have been a dream? The rug on the sofa was neatly folded, just as it had been when she came up to bed last night. Not a sign was to be seen of any intrusion during the night.
Even when she went downstairs and met Mrs. Dale in the hall, there was little to tell of the experience of the hours of darkness. Perhaps the pretty widow looked a little paler than usual, but in every other respect she was the same airy, impulsive creature, now smiling, now looking sad, as she had been before the dreadful visit of the lady whom irreverent Mabin called “the cat.”
It was not indeed until breakfast was over and they had gone out into the garden to cut some flowers while the dew was on them, that either of the ladies made any reference to the events of the night.
Mrs. Dale, with one daintily shod foot in a flower-bed, was stretching out her hands toward a bush of sweet-peas, when, without turning her head, she said:
“I am in great trouble about you, Mabin.”
“Are you? Why, Mrs. Dale?”