He remembered the passion of the old days, he remembered that scene by the lake only two short days ago, how during those two days had she changed. She greeted him with a friendly smile, she held out her hand to him, she wished him good morning and good night and talked to him of trivial, every day things, listening with interest to the few remarks he made and that was all.
But she was a woman and he knew little of women, but had read much and so had obtained a false impression. She was clever, she was hiding her feelings and doing it successfully. When the time came, and it would come, then she would fling all pretence to the winds, she would be his, he would open his arms to her, the ten years of hunger would be ended.
To-night he sat in his corner and listened to everyone and said little, but he was watchful and presently he saw Allan go out and, waiting for a time, Scarsdale too rose and sauntered to the window and stepped out into the garden.
Allan, however, had not gone to the garden. He remembered that Betty was going to her grandmother's to-night.
She would be sure to leave the old woman's cottage by nine. He counted on that. He wanted to see her, he wanted to see how she had taken what her grandmother would say to her, he wanted to know that Betty would realise how sensible the arrangement was and how it would be for her own good and happiness in the long run. She was young, a mere child, in some far away little village she would begin a new life, unmolested by Abram Lestwick, the terror of his presence and his pretensions removed for ever from her mind. And far away amid new surroundings, she would surely forget in time—perhaps not at once—yet in time, all those strange happenings and that strange tie that had drawn Betty and himself so closely together.
Allan was not vain, he did not for one moment believe that it was his own personality that had attracted Betty, or that he himself—the man he was now, had ever awakened any feelings of tenderness and love in that little heart.
It was the glamour, the strange mystery, the unsolvable mystery, those visions that she—and he too—had seen, that dimly uncertain memory of 'something' that had been, in the buried and unknown past; it was that that had appealed to her as of course it had appealed to him.
So Allan lighted his pipe and strolled away down the dusky road and strangely enough had not gone ten paces before he was thinking of Kathleen, rather than of her he had come to meet.
* * * * *
Mrs. Hanson sat upright on her stiff old chair, her hands were folded primly on her narrow lap, her eyes were fixed in an unwavering stare on the closed door.