“My dear Maria, I was wrong in not leaving a message. I was sent for to Mrs. Porter’s cottage. She has gone away in rather a mysterious manner.”
“Gone away!”
“Yes. That in itself is rather astonishing, you know; but there was something so strange in her manner of leaving that I feel it my duty to look after her. I shall go up to town by the midday train. I have other business which may keep me in London for a few days, till the shooting begins, perhaps. I have sent Theodore to the Priory to tell Juanita that you are going to her this afternoon, and that you will stay with her till I come back.”
“That is disposing of me rather as if I were a chattel,” said his wife, smiling.
“I knew you would be glad of a few days’ quiet baby-worship at the Priory, and I knew this house would be dull for you without any visitors.”
“Yes, there is always a gloom upon the house when you are away—a much deeper gloom since last summer. No sooner am I alone than I begin to think of that dreadful night when my poor girl saw her murdered husband lying at her feet. Yes, James, you are right in sending me away. I shall be happy at the Priory with my darling—and she can never again be happy with me in this house.”
Lord Cheriton breakfasted in his wife’s room—it was only an apology for breakfast, for he was too agitated to eat; but he refreshed himself with a cup of strong tea, and he enjoyed the restfulness of his wife’s companionship while he sat there waiting for the carriage which was to take him to Wareham.
“What makes you so uneasy about Mrs. Porter?” Lady Cheriton asked presently.
“The suddenness and strangeness of her departure, in the first place. It would have been only natural she should have communicated with you or me before she left. And, in the second place, I have been made uneasy by an observation of Mr. Ramsay’s. He has conceived the opinion that Mrs. Porter is not altogether right in her mind—that there is a strain of madness.”
“Oh, James, that would be dreadful!”