She stood there looking round her—and then across at Tristram. He made a movement as though he would have risen, but she lifted her hand slightly, imperatively, and he sank back, not looking at her. Her lips were a little parted with an odd, pathetic little smile. It seemed, as she stood here, that she was trying, not to speak, but to grope her way to some thought, to some answer.
Nobody spoke to her or tried to stop her. But at that moment she belonged to them, was one of them—for the last time. Sheer futility lamed all movement, all expression of what they felt. It was as though a frail, beautiful ship had broken from its moorings in a great tempest and they stood there and watched it drift out seawards beyond the reach of their voices, of their help or pity.
Only Mrs. Bosanquet cried openly—the tears rolling down her fat cheeks.
Sigrid went out through the silence. She found Barclay already in the driving seat of his dog-cart and without a word clambered up beside him. He glanced at her and brought the whip down savagely across the horse's head. The animal did not need the blow. It felt the madness in the man's hand and broke into a wild gallop. They swung through the compound gates out on to the white moonlit road. For an instant they seemed to hover in mid-air, and then, with a grinding jar, the off-wheel came back on to the ground and they raced on, down through the black belt of the palm-trees and out again into the silver road, pursued by their own frantic shadows.
Only once did Barclay speak, and then it was to himself between clenched teeth:
"Now I know," he whispered. "Now I can see clear."
She did not answer. She sat very still, gazing steadily ahead into the half-light which ran before them, and encircled them with odd, treacherous shapes, so that now there seemed a barrier where there was none, and now a clear road where suddenly it curved and dipped. He drove well. Once the horse shied violently at an overhanging branch, and with a turn of his wrist he brought the animal to a baulked, fretting submission. Sigrid gave a short laugh, and he glanced sideways at her. Perhaps in that moment a grim admiration one for the other rose between them. At least neither had shown fear.
A syce, drowsing on the steps of the old bungalow, ran out to meet them and caught the restive, sweating animal by the head. Barclay threw him an order in Hindustani and then, without a glance at his companion, led the way to the room where the amazing Venus held her lamp. He crossed straight over to the wide-open windows and pulled the curtains to.
The door behind Sigrid closed softly.
Still Barclay did not look at her. He opened a cigarette box with a theatrical affectation of deliberation, but when he struck a match she saw that his hand shook. The tiny flame near to his face betrayed new, ugly lines cut deep about the mouth and nostrils.