But in this case Hartley Salis took steps to prevent the alarm spreading, as he thought, in happy ignorance of the fact that Dally was down on her knees breathing hard with her ear to the keyhole.
He tapped softly, and uttered Leo’s name again and again before trying the door and satisfying himself that it was locked on the inside.
He uttered a low, hissing sound as he stood there thinking, his brow knit, and an angry glare in his eye. He felt no dread of an accident or of illness, for the note he had received was a warning of what he might expect. He only wanted one proof of its truth.
He went back to where Mary was waiting, full of anxiety.
“I know nothing yet,” he said abruptly. “Wait!”
With his countenance growing more stern-looking and old, Salis went downstairs and into the drawing-room, which was the easiest way out on to the little lawn at the back.
The window fastening was removed without sound, the door opened, and he stepped out on to the short grass, with the stars overhead glimmering brightly enough for him to make out the dark patches of leafage trained against the house and the dim panes of the different casements.
He did not look in the direction of Dally Watlock’s room, or he might have made out a fat little hand holding the blind sufficiently on one side for a pair of dark eyes to watch keenly what was going on. He stepped straight at once for the summer-house, with his heart beating in a low, heavy throb, as he mentally prayed that the words written in that note might be a cruel lie.
Only a few moments, and then, feeling as if stricken by some mental blow—angry, jealous of the man who had stolen from him the love of his sister; enraged against the carefully-bred girl, whose life had been passed in the pure atmosphere of a country rectory, and to whose welfare he had devoted himself, to the exclusion of what might be dear to the heart of man. All contended in his heart for mastery, and seemed to suffocate him, as he dimly saw that it was true, and that the girl of refinement, to whom he and Mary had rendered up everything that her life might be smooth and pleasant, was behaving like some miserable drab who had the excuse of knowing no better, of looking at reputation as an intangible something, worthless for such as she.
The casement was wide open, pressing back the creepers; and the interior of Leo’s room showed like a black, oblong patch.