Twice I strove to call out; twice the sound died away in my throat. I felt as one does in some awful nightmare, when a man cries aloud no sound comes, or runs his fastest and yet does not move. In it, I was yet not of it; it was as if I was the spectator of some inexorable tragedy with no power to intervene.
The steps came nearer. They were crossing the hall now—the cobwebby hall—and the next moment I saw a young man standing in the open door.
"Mary, where are you, my darling?" He came into the room and glanced around. And, as he stood there, one hand in his pocket, smiling cheerily, the man behind the door put out his arm and gripped him by the shoulder. In an instant the smile vanished, and the youngster spun round, his face set and hard.
"Here is your darling, John Trelawnay," said the husband quietly. "What do you want with her?"
"Ah!" The youngster's breath came a little faster, as he stared at the older man. "You've come back unexpectedly, have you? It's the sort of damned dirty trick you would play."
I smiled involuntarily: this was carrying the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance.
"What are you doing in this house alone with my wife, John Trelawnay?" Into the quiet voice had crept a note of menace, and, as I glanced at the speaker and noticed the close clenching and unclenching of his powerful hands. I realized that there was going to be trouble. The old, old story again, but, rightly or wrongly, with every sympathy of mine on the side of the sinners.
"Your wife by a trick only, Rupert Carlingham," returned the other hotly. "You know she's never loved you; you know she has always loved me."
"Nevertheless—my wife. But I ask you again, what are you doing in this house while I am away?"
"Did you expect us to stand outside in the storm?" muttered the other.