And then in dubious tones:
“Oh, very well then. Sorry to have troubled you. Good night.”
She didn’t reply and stole back through the darkness to her bed, into which she crept, like some thin wraith of vengeance, biding her time.
Into bed, but not to sleep. She watched the moonlight grow pale into the west and saw the first gray streaks of dawn paint the wooded slopes of Ben Darrah across the valley of the Dorth. In pity for herself and Cyril she watched the new day born, a new day, bleak and cheerless, which seemed by its very aspect to pronounce a sentence upon them; the new day which was to mark the passing of all the things growing womanhood holds most dear, her first faith, her first tenderness, her first passion.
Doris kept to her room until Betty came in, awakening her from a heavy sleep into which she had fallen just before sunrise. Lady Heathcote rang for Wilson and then retired to the ministrations of her own maid, leaving Doris to dress for the morning at her leisure. And when the girl got downstairs to breakfast she found that the other guests had preceded her. But Betty Heathcote was still in the breakfast room picking with dainty fingers at the various dishes upon the sideboard and making sparkling comment as was her custom on men and things. She found the disappearance of John Rizzio, bag, baggage and man, from Kilmorack House without even a line to his hostess both unusual and surprising, since her guest was a man who made much of the amenities and forms of proper behavior. Doris commented in a desultory way, trying to put on an air of cheerfulness, aware of Cyril Hammersley somewhere in the background awaiting the chance to speak to her alone. She did not hurry, and when Betty arose sauntered into the library where the other guests were waiting for the horses to come around. Twice Cyril tried to speak to her, but she avoided him skillfully, contriving to be a part of a group where personal topics were not to be discussed. That kind of maneuvering she knew was a game at which any woman is more than a match for any man. But she saw by the cloud that was growing in Cyril’s eyes that he was not in the mood to be put off with excuses, and realized that the sooner the pain of their interview was over, the better it would be for both of them. She was dressed in the long coat and breeches which she wore in the hunting field, and in her waistcoat pocket was the yellow packet.
“I’ve got to see you for half an hour alone,” he said at last, taking the bull by the horns.
“I shall miss my ride.”
“They’re taking the long road to Ben-a-Chielt. I’ll take you there in the motor and send your mount on by a groom.”
She acquiesced with a cool shrug which put him at once upon his guard, but Doris had reached a pass when all she wanted was to bring their relations to an end as speedily and with as little pain as possible. So that when the others had gone she sank into a chair before the fire, coldly asking him what he wanted. He stood with his back to the hearth, his hands clasped behind him, in a long moment of silence as though trying to find the words to begin.