“Paul! Paul!” I gasped. Not for long afterwards did I realize that I had used his name. “How can you, how can you put me through such agony? As though this were not enough! O God! God!”
I broke down utterly. I shook and wept. He held me in his arms. I could feel him tremble.
“Go back to your room,” he said at last, in a low, guilty sort of voice. “Try to command yourself.”
I faltered away, trying pitifully as a punished child, to be obedient, to be good, to merit trust. He looked after me with such a face of doubt and despair that, had it not been for Robbie's small, wax-like countenance, I must have been haunted by the look.
I got somehow to my room and lay down on my bed. I was broken in body, mind, and spirit. For the time being there was no strength or courage left in me. But they came back.
CHAPTER VII—THE RUSSIAN BOOK-SHELVES
IT was fortunate for us all, especially for poor Mary, that, after Robbie's death, Mrs. Brane needed every care and attention that we could give her. For myself, I had expected prompt dismissal, but, as it turned out, Mrs. Brane more than ever insisted upon my staying on as housekeeper. Neither Mary, because of her loyalty to me, nor Paul Dabney, for some less friendly reason, had told the poor little woman of the cause of Robbie's death, nor of their suspicions concerning my complicity, unconscious or otherwise.
It may seem strange to the reader that I should not have left “The Pines.” It seems strange to me now. But there was more than one reason for my courage or my obstinacy. First, I felt that after Dabney's extraordinary treatment of me, treatment which he made no attempt to explain and for which he made no apology, my honor demanded that I should stay in the house and clear up the double mystery of the locked door that opened, and of the strand of red-gold hair that was wrapped around poor little Robbie's fingers. Of course I may have dreamed that the door was locked; I may have, that time when I fancied myself broad awake, been really in a state of trance, and, instead of finding a locked door and going back to bed, I may then have gone through the door and down the hall to Robbie's nursery, coming to myself only, when, being again in bed, I had awakened to the sound of his screams. This explanation, I know, was the one adopted by Mary. Mr. Dabney had other and darker suspicions. I realized that in some mysterious fashion he had constituted himself my judge. I realized, too, by degrees, and here, if you like, was the chief reason for my not leaving “The Pines,” that Paul Dabney simply would not have let me go. Unobtrusively, quietly, more, almost loathfully, he kept me under a strict surveillance. I became conscious of it slowly. If I had to leave the place on an errand he accompanied me or he sent Mary to accompany me. At about this time Mrs. Brane, without asking any advice from me, engaged two outdoor men. They were to tidy up the grounds, she told me, and to do some repairing within and without. They were certainly the most inefficient workmen I have ever seen. They were always pottering about the house or grounds. I grew weary of the very sight of them. It seemed to me that one was always in my sight, whatever I did, wherever I went.