“Yes, when I was getting well at the Grange you didn’t always treat me with proper respect, I fancy,” said he, flushing, but looking down into her eyes rather mischievously.
“Oh, ah—then you were ill!” she said, blushing too.
The last words she said to her husband as the train went off were:
“Remember you are not to be with me later than four. Promise.”
“All right; I promise.”
And, trying to look as if her mind was at ease, Annie gave him a last smiling “Good-bye,” as the train started.
On arriving in town, she drove straight to the house where Stephen lodged, and, finding that he was out, she sat down in the sitting-room to wait for him. Long ere this an explanation of the cripple’s cruel and deceitful conduct had occurred to her, and it seemed more and more probable to her, as she sat in the shabby sitting-room, with its low, weather-stained ceiling and ill-papered walls. Evidently the money which he had kept back from her he had not spent upon himself; it must have gone where her jewelry had gone, and Harry’s flowers—to Muriel West. Annie knew well to what depths of meanness he would descend in his devotion to a woman, for she remembered with what dogged and disinterested fidelity he had fulfilled every command, every wish of his cousin Lilian in the old days at the Grange, before her marriage with Mr. Falconer. In spite of her contempt for a man who could stoop to such acts, Annie was touched by the cripple’s hapless attachment, and a great pity filled her heart as she heard the slow thud, thud of his crutch upon the staircase. Her compassion deepened when the door opened and Stephen stood before her, wild-eyed and pale with a pallor which was like that of death. She sat quite still for an instant, unable to speak, unable to express what she felt at the dreadful change in his appearance.
But when she rose very softly and held out a hand to him, she discovered, to her horror, that he still stared blankly in front of him, making no sign. He did not see her.
“Stephen,” said she, in a low voice.
He started, and for the first time knew that he was not alone.