Across at The Ghan House, in a room from which a bright light shone through the trees, in view of Jack’s window, the two other sisters were taking off their pretty dresses, and preparing to slip into their two dainty little white beds. Now and then they laughed over something that had happened at the ball, but for the most part Eileen was dreamy and Paddy preoccupied.
“Was Lawrence very nice to-night?” asked the latter at last, longing to know what had transpired.
“Yes,” Eileen answered simply. Paddy looked round suddenly and opened her lips to speak, but something in her sister’s face held her back.
She was going to ask if he had told her about going to India, but realising how it might hurt Eileen if he had not, she changed her mind.
“I can’t—I can’t,” she said to herself. “She looks so happy. I can’t damp it; if he has been playing with her, I will kill him—kill him—kill him,” and she clenched her hands together and tumbled into bed, forgetting for the time her own trouble in her wrath against Lawrence.
CHAPTER XVI
The First Awakening.
It was through her father, a few days later, that Eileen first heard of Lawrence’s plans. He came blustering in from his usual daily walk one morning and exclaimed:
“That fellow Lawrence is off again—going back to India to kill a few more tigers—never knew such a chap—can’t stay quiet scarcely a month—pity he doesn’t look after his estate at home, I think, instead of gadding off over the seas again, and I nearly told him so.”
Mrs Adair, at the first words, had looked up in surprise, but Paddy, who was interested in a small sailing boat at the window, turned and covertly watched Eileen. As she half expected, she saw her turn deadly pale, as if the news were a shock, and Paddy knew at once that Lawrence had not told her the evening of the dance, although his plans were already formed, and she hated him yet more vigorously.