The interview lasted barely ten minutes, but to Anne Clavering it seemed as if æons of time separated her from the Anne Clavering of half an hour ago. Clavering was unshaken. He had been contemplating this event in his life ever since it happened, thirty-five years before, and had reckoned himself a magnanimous man in determining not to reveal the truth about his marriage unless he was compelled to—that is to say, unless he could not get the divorce by other means. But Anne had forced his hand, as it were; so let her take the consequences. The repudiation of his wife cost Clavering not a pang. He took no thought of her patience, her years of uncomplaining work for him, her silence under his neglect and abandonment. The thought, however, that he had admitted to any one the illegitimacy of his children, gave him a certain degree of discomfort; he felt an inward shock when he spoke the words. But it was not enough to turn him from his will.
Anne sat still for so long that Clavering did not know what to make of it. She had grown very pale, and Clavering suspected that she really had not the strength to rise, which was the truth. The room was so profoundly still that when a smouldering log in the fireplace broke in two and fell apart with a shower of sparks, the slight noise made both Clavering and Anne start.
Anne rose then, somewhat unsteadily. Clavering would have liked to offer his arm and to have assisted her to her bedroom, but he was afraid. She walked out of the room without looking at him or speaking to him again. Halfway up the broad and splendid staircase he heard her stop, and, looking out of the half-open door, he saw her shadowy figure sitting on the stairs. After a few moments more she went on up, and he could hear only the faint sound of her silken skirts as she moved. Opposite her mother’s door she stopped. There was no sound within, and she passed on.
It was one of Elizabeth Darrell’s sleepless and harassed nights. About three o’clock she rose from her bed and went to the window. In the great house opposite, Clavering’s library windows were lighted up, and so were the windows of Anne’s boudoir. A sudden suspicion of the truth flashed into Elizabeth’s mind.
“His daughter suspects something—has discovered something,” she thought to herself, panting and terrified. “They have had a scene.”
Neither Elizabeth nor Clavering nor Anne had any sleep that night.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day was Mrs. Luttrell’s day at home, and in spite of her declared preference for small receptions, a choice little circle of friends, tea and good plain bread and butter, she contrived to have crowds of visitors, resplendent drawing-rooms, and in the dining room a brilliant table, glowing with floral feather beds and sparkling with lights, whereon were served most of the kickshaws which Mrs. Luttrell had so severely animadverted on the day before.