In a way, the whole chain of events was the manifestation of the disturbing force which had in the end revealed the secret of Savina’s letters. It had mocked them, and now the secret weighed on Olivia as a thing which she must tell some one, which she could no longer keep to herself. It burned her, too, with the sense of possessing a terrible and shameful weapon which she might use if pushed beyond endurance.
Slowly, after the two lovers had disappeared, she made her way back again toward the old house, which loomed square and black against the deep blue of the sky, and as she walked, her anger at Miss Egan’s betrayal of trust seemed to melt mysteriously away. She would speak to Miss Egan to-morrow, or the day after; in any case, the affair had been going on all summer and no harm had come of it—no harm save the discovery of Savina Pentland’s letters. She felt a sudden sympathy for this starched, efficient woman whom she had always disliked; she saw that Miss Egan’s life, after all, was a horrible thing—a procession of days spent in the company of a mad old woman. It was, Olivia thought, something like her own existence....
And it occurred to her at the same time that it would be difficult to explain to so sharp-witted a creature as Miss Egan why she herself should have been on the bridge at such an hour of the night. It was as if everything, each little thought and action, became more and more tangled and hopeless, more and more intricate and complicated with the passing of each day. There was no way out save to cut the web boldly and escape.
“No,” she thought, “I will not stay.... I will not sacrifice myself. To-morrow I shall tell Michael that when Sybil is gone, I will do whatever he wants me to do....”
When she reached the house she found it dark save for the light which burned perpetually in the big hall illuminating faintly the rows of portraits; and silent save for the creakings which afflicted it in the stillness of the night.
3
She was wakened early, after having slept badly, with the news that Michael had been kept in Boston the night before and would not be able to ride with her as usual. When the maid had gone away she grew depressed, for she had counted upon seeing him and coming to some definite plan. For a moment she even experienced a vague jealousy, which she put away at once as shameful. It was not, she told herself, that he ever neglected her; it was only that he grew more and more occupied as the autumn approached. It was not that there was any other woman involved; she felt certain of him. And yet there remained that strange, gnawing little suspicion, placed in her mind when John Pentland had said, “He’s a clever Irishman on the make ... and such gentlemen need watching.”
After all, she knew nothing of him save what he had chosen to tell her. He was a free man, independent, a buccaneer, who could do as he chose in life. Why should he ruin himself for her?
She rose at last, determined to ride alone, in the hope that the fresh morning air and the exercise would put to rout this cloud of morbidity which had kept possession of her from the moment she left John Pentland in the library.
As she dressed, she thought, “Day after to-morrow I shall be forty years old. Perhaps that’s the reason why I feel tired and morbid. Perhaps I’m on the borderland of middle-age. But that can’t be. I am strong and well and I look young, despite everything. I am tired because of what happened last night.” And then it occurred to her that perhaps Mrs. Soames had known these same thoughts again and again during her long devotion to John Pentland. “No,” she told herself, “whatever happens I shall never lead the life she has led. Anything is better than that ... anything.”