He sighed again, walked to the drawing-room window to see that the bar was across the shutter; and, this done, he turned hastily and gazed back into the room that had been Lady Teigne’s chamber, and as he did so the dew stood upon his forehead, for he seemed to see the bed with its dragged curtains, the empty casket on the floor, and by it the knife that he had picked up and hidden in his breast.
Yes, there it all was, and Claire standing gazing at him with that horrified look of suspicion in her beautiful face, as the thought came which had placed an icy barrier between them ever since. Yes, there she was, staring at him so wildly, and it was like a horrible nightmare, and—
“Father—are you ill?”
“Claire! Is it you? No, no; nothing the matter. Tired; wearied out. So long and anxious an evening. Good-night!”
She had come in to find him staring back into that room in a half cataleptic state; and the sight of his ghastly face brought all back to her. For a few moments she could not move, but at last, by an effort, she spoke, and he seemed to be snatched back by her voice into life and action.
“Good-night, father,” she said, trembling as she read the agonies of a conscious-stricken soul in his countenance, and she was moving towards the door, when, with an agonised cry, he turned to her.
“Claire, my child, must it be always so?” he cried, as he clasped his hands towards her as if in prayer.
“Father!” she said, in a voice almost inaudible from emotion.
“Claire, my child,” he moaned, as he sank upon his knees before her: “you do not know the burden I have to bear.”
She did what she had not done for months, as she stood trembling before him; laid one hand upon his head, while her lips parted as if to speak, but they only quivered and no words came.