He could but think it odd that he had not been asked to dine at the Manor, as he would have been in the ordinary course of events. He had told the builder’s wife that he should most likely dine out, whereupon that friendly soul had answered, “Why, of course they’ll ask you, Mr. Rollinson. You know they’re always glad to see you.”
And now he had to return to solitude and a fresh-killed chop.
It was seven o’clock, and George Greswold had not yet come home from Salisbury. Very few words had passed between him and his wife since she fell fainting at his feet last night. He had summoned her maid, and between them they had brought her back to consciousness, and half carried her to her room. She would give no explanation of her fainting-fit when the maid had left the room, and she was lying on her bed, white and calm, with her husband sitting by her side. She told him that she was tired, and that a sudden giddiness had come upon her. That was all he could get from her.
“If you will ask me no questions, and leave me quite alone, I will try to sleep, so that I may be fit for my work in the concert to-morrow,” she pleaded. “I would not disappoint them for worlds.”
“I don’t think you need be over-anxious about them,” said her husband bitterly. “There is more at stake than a painted window: there is your peace and mine. Answer me only one question,” he said, with intensity of purpose: “had your fainting-fit anything to do with the portrait of my first wife?”
“I will tell you everything—after the concert to-morrow,” she answered; “for God’s sake leave me to myself till then.”
“Let it be as you will,” he answered, rising suddenly, wounded by her reticence.
He left the room without another word. She sprang up from her bed directly he was gone, ran to the door and locked it, and then flung herself on her knees upon the prie-dieu chair at the foot of a large ivory crucifix which hung in a deep recess beside the old-fashioned fireplace.
Here she knelt, in tears and prayer, deep into the night. Then for an hour or more she walked up and down the room, absorbed in thought, by the dim light of the night-lamp.