“You mean Morena’s making it up—about her not being willing to see me?”
“I do mean that. And no doubt he’s doing it with the best intentions. But I’m willing to take a risk. See those stairs? You run up them to the fifth floor. The nurse is out. Gael is in attendance; that is, he’s in the sitting-room. She doesn’t know of his presence, hasn’t been allowed to see him. Miss West’s door—the outside one—is ajar. Go up. Get past Gael if you can. Behave yourself quietly, and if you see the least sign of weakness on the part of Miss West, or if she shows the slightest disinclination for your company, come down—I’m trusting you—as quickly as you can and tell me. I’ll wait. Have I your promise?”
“Yes, sir,” gasped Pierre.
The doctor smiled at the swift, leaping grace of his Western friend’s ascent. He was anxious concerning the result of his experiment, but there was a memory upon him of a haunted look in Joan’s eyes that seemed the fellow to a look of Pierre’s. He rather believed in intuitions, especially his own.
CHAPTER XIII
THE END OF THE TRAIL
At the top of the fourth flight of steps, Pierre found himself facing a door that stood ajar. Beyond that door was Joan and he knew not what experience of discovery, of explanation, of punishment. What he had suffered since the night of his cruelty would be nothing to what he might have to suffer now at the hands of the woman he had loved and hurt. That she was incredibly changed he knew, what had happened to change her he did not know. That she had suffered greatly was certain. One could not look at the face of Jane West, even under its disguise of paint and pencil, without a sharp realization of profound and embittering experience. And, just as certainly, she had gone far ahead of her husband in learning, in a certain sort of mental and social development. Pierre was filled with doubt and with dread, with an almost unbearable self-depreciation. And at the same time he was filled with a nameless fear of what Joan might herself have become.
He stood with his hand on the knob of that half-opened door, bent his head, and drew some deep, uneven breaths. He thought of Holliwell as though the man were standing beside him. He stepped in quietly, shut the door, and walked without hesitation down the passageway into the little, sunny sitting-room. There, before the crackling, open fire, sat Prosper Gael.